Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 24806 of 2020 Petitioner :- Kunwar Dilshad Ali Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 8 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Ishir Sripat Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Pankaj Srivastava
Hon'ble Naheed Ara Moonis,J. Hon'ble Dinesh Pathak,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Udyan Agrawal holding brief of Shri Panka Srivastava, learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondents no. 4 to 8 and the learned Standing Counsel on behalf of respondents no. 1, 2, 3 & 9.
The instant petition has been filed seeking following reliefs :
"(i) Issue a Writ of Certiorari quashing the recovery challan dated 03.03.2020 (Annexure no. 11) issued by Respondent no. 9;
(ii) Issue a Writ of Certiorari quashing the notices dated 05.10.2015 (Annexure no. 1) and 07.05.2016 (Annexure no. 2) issued by Respondent no. 6,
(iii) Issue a Writ of Certiorari quashing the recovery certificate dated 15.02.2017 (Annexure no. 3) issued by respondent no. 3."
Submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that in the elections of U.P. Legislative Assembly, 2015, the petitioner was a contesting candidate of Bahujan Samaj Party for Meerut constituency. The petitioner, as per rules of Nagar Nigam, Meerut had put hoardings on the pillars in his constituency. After two months, the candidature of the petitioner was cancelled. Thereafter one Pankaj Jolly was announced as a candidate of the Bahujan Samaj Party for the elections of 2015, who, without taking consent of the petitioner, had published the name of the petitioner on the hoardings for the purposes of gaining benefits of votes. Surprisingly, in the year 2017, the petitioner was served with a demand notice dated 05.10.2015 and 07.05.2016 and thereafter served with a Recovery Certificate dated 15.02.2017 imposing further amount of Rs.1,20,000/- towards advertisement fees due to the Nagar Nigam, Meerut.
Petitioner, aggrieved by the said action of the respondent authority, had filed a petition being Writ C No.1396 of 2020 which was dismissed by a Coordinate Bench of this Court by the order dated 18.01.2020 and no relief was granted to the petitioner. The said order is being quoted herein below :-
"Heard Sri Ishir Sripat, learned counsel for the petitioner, Ms. Archana Srivastava, Advocate holding brief of Sri Pankaj Srivastava, learned counsel for respondent nos. 4 to 8, learned Standing Counsel for respondent nos. 1 to 3 and perused the record.
By means of this writ petition, the petitioner has questioned the recovery certificate issued way back on 15th February, 2017. The petitioner has explained the delay only to the extent that he has been pursing the matter before the authority concerned by moving application/representation. However, we find that there is no pleading to the effect as to whether any coercive measure is being pursued against the petitioner pursuant to the recovery issued long back in the year 2017. We do not find any justification to issue any writ or direction at this stage of the proceedings and there is no cause of action and that too the writ petition has been belatedly filed after a lapse of more than two years from the date of issuance of recovery certificate.
The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed.”
The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that after this order, the petitioner has now been served with a recovery citation dated 03.03.2020 which is annexed as Annexure-11 to the writ petition. The recovery citation is not followed by any notice of demand with respect to the claim of money as shown in the demand notice. He further contends that without affording opportunity of hearing to the petitioner the recovery citation issued subsequent to the demand notices is unjust and illegal.
At this stage, learned counsel for the respondent submits that in case the petitioner moves a fresh representation ventilating all his grievances as mentioned by him in his earlier representation dated 06.07.2017, the same shall be considered and decided within time as may be directed by this Court.
Having considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties, we dispose of the present petition with a direction to the petitioner to file a fresh representation before respondent no. 7 (Nagar Nigam, Meerut) within two weeks from today along with a copy of this order, the same shall be considered and decided by the said respondent, by a reasoned and speaking order after giving due opportunity of hearing to the petitioner, preferably within six weeks therefrom.
No coercive action shall be taken against the petitioner till the representation is decided. In case the petitioner fails to make a representation within the aforesaid period, he shall not be entitled to the benefits of this order.
Order Date :- 8.1.2021 VR/