Hon'ble Irshad Ali,J.
Heard Sri Prabhu Sharan, learned counsel for the appellants and to Sri Anand Kumar Singh, learned Standing Counsel for opposite party Nos.1 to 9.
The appellants are challenging the order dated 24.07.2019, whereby the learned Writ Court after considering the fact that the issue involved in the writ petition has been squarely covered by the judgment dated 10.09.2018 passed in Writ Petition No.25664 (S/S) of 2018 and in the earlier round of litigation the matter traveled upto Hon'ble Supreme Court and thereafter review and curative petition have also been dismissed and therefore, dismissed the writ petition.
To appreciate the aforesaid, we quote paragraph Nos.3 to 5 of the impugned order:
"3. There is consensus at the Bar that the matter is squarely covered by the judgment of this Court dated 10.09.2018 passed in Writ Petition No. 25664 (SS) of 2018 Inre;Constable C.P. 757 Suresh Chandra Vs. State of U.P and Ors. For the sake of convenience, the judgment and order dated 10.09.2018 is reproduced as under:-
"Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri P.K. Singh, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel appearing for the respondents.
By means of the present writ petition, the petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:-
"(i) a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari for quashing the impugned Government Order dated 27.02.1999 as contained in Annexure No.4 to this writ petition.
(ii) a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to promote the petitioner on the post of Sub-Inspector w.e.f. 11.11.2006.
(iii) issue any other writ, order or direction, which this Hon'ble Court may deem, just and proper in the circumstances of the case.
(iv) issue the award cost of this petition petitioner."
From perusal of the reliefs as have been prayed for by the petitioner it is apparent that the challenge is to the Government Order dated 27.02.1999 on various grounds as have been set forth in the writ petition.
The facts set forth by the petitioner are that in pursuance to a selection held for the post of Sub-Inspector, a select list dated 11.11.2006 was issued. The select list was challenged before this Court in a bunch of petitions of which leading writ petition was Writ Petition No.9786 (SS) of 2006 in re: Constable Mamta Yadav and others vs. State of U.P. and others, which was allowed in part by this Court. Copy of the judgment dated 23.05.2007 is Annexure-6 to the writ petition. The said judgment was challenged by the State Government as well as certain selected candidates by preferring Special Appeal No.982 of 2007 in re: State of U.P. and others vs. Constable 4761 Sheela Devi and others along with other connected matters. A Division Bench of this Court vide judgment and order dated 14.03.2008 set-aside the judgment passed by Single Judge. Copy of the judgment passed in special appeal is Annexure-7 to the writ petition. The Division Bench further directed that the State Government would be at liberty to proceed to take further steps since the successful candidates have completed their training in the meanwhile. The judgment of the Division Bench passed in special appeal was further challenged in Civil Appeal No.6549 of 2014 in re: HC Pradeep Kumar Rai and others vs. Dinesh Kumar Pandey and others along with connected matters. Hon'ble Supreme Court vide judgment and order dated 11.05.2015, a copy of which is Annexure-8 to the writ petition, upheld the judgment of the Division Bench passed in the special appeal. Certain candidates being aggrieved with the judgment passed by Hon'ble Supreme Court in Civil Appeal, preferred a Review Petition No.2739-44 of 2015 and other review petitions. Though the judgment passed in the aforesaid review petition has not been annexed yet a copy of the review petition filed before Hon'ble Supreme Court has been filed as Annexure-11 to the writ petition. Ground 'C' as taken in the review petition pertains to the Government Order dated 27.02.1999 as is under challenge in the instant writ petition. It appears that Hon'ble the Supreme Court dismissed the review petitions and thereafter a curative petition namely Curative Petition No.384-411 of 2016 in re: Pradeep Kumar Rai and others vs. Dinesh Kumar and others, was filed which too was dismissed by Hon'ble the Supreme Court vide judgment and order dated 18.10.2016, a copy of which is Annexure-19 to the writ petition.
Now by means of the instant writ petition, a challenge is sought to be raised to the Government order dated 27.02.1999 and it is argued that in case the said Government Order is set-aside by this Court then the selection that has been held way back in the year 2006 would have to be cancelled and consequently the petitioner would be selected.
A perusal of the aforesaid facts as have been culled out in detail would indicate that the plea pertaining to the Government order dated 27.02.1999 has already been taken before Hon'ble the Supreme Court in review petition but the same did not find favour and when the judgment in the review petition was also made subject to a curative petition, the same was also dismissed by Hon'ble Supreme Court. Thus, the selection which resulted in the select list dated 11.11.2006 has attained finality with the dismissal of the curative petition. Now, attempts being made by the petitioner to re-open the such proceedings by seeking to challenge the selection of the year 2006 in a surreptitious method of raising a challenge to the Government order dated 27.02.1999 cannot be appreciated by this Court keeping in view the discussions made above.
Accordingly, the writ petition is patently misconceived and consequently dismissed."
4. Sri Manish Kumar, learned Senior Advocate, additionaly submits that the information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as "Act, 2005") has only been provided on 20.12.2016 and though a specific ground was taken before the Apex Court in the aforesaid review petition as per ground C yet at that time the petitioners were not having the information which was applied under the Act, 2005 and thus on that basis the matter could not be argued effectively before the Apex Court both in the review petitions as well as in the Curative Petition no. 384-411 of 2016 dismissed on 18.10.2016.
5. This Court is of the view that once a specific ground had been taken as ground C in the review petition and a specific ground was also taken in the curative petition of the Government order dated 27.02.1999 not being approved by His Excellency the Governor rather having only been passed by the Director General of Police who did not have the power to supersede the earlier Government order then merely because the written information in this regard was received by the petitioners subsequently would not be a ground for re-agitating the entire issue before this Court pertaining to a selection started in the year 1999 i.e after a period of almost 20 years."
On due consideration of the aforesaid, we cannot accept the contention of learned counsel for the appellants that they received certain information on the basis of Right to Information Act, 2005 (R.T.I.) after passing of the judgment and order and therefore, wants to re-open the whole question, which has been decided by the Hon'ble Apex Court.
In view of the above, the special appeal is dismissed.
.
[Irshad Ali, J.] [Pankaj Kumar Jaiswal, J.] Order Date :- 27.9.2019 Adarsh K Singh