Litigant Blatantly & Glaringly Indulging In Forum Shopping, Misrepresentation & Suppression: Bombay HC Imposes Costs Of Rs 5 Lakh

The Court dismissed the Writ Petition filed by the Petitioner challenging Section 3 of the Judges (Protection) Act, 1985 as “unconstitutional and void” arguing that it afforded absolute immunity to judicial officers even where they had acted unfairly and wilfully denied justice. The Court, while imposing costs, observed that several prayers in the Petition were “practically copied and pasted” from earlier petitions.

A Division Bench of Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Ashwin D. Bhobe observed, “This is a serious case of a Petitioner/litigant blatantly and glaringly indulging in forum shopping, misrepresentation and suppression. Imposition of cost would be justified in the light of…Dinesh Gupta V/s. State of Uttar Pradesh and Anr., 2024 SCC OnLine 34. In Dinesh Gupta (supra), the Hon’ble Supreme Court recorded in the opening paragraph that unscrupulous litigants should not be allowed to go scot-free. They should be put to strict terms and conditions, including costs. It is time to check with firmness such litigation initiated and laced with concealment, falsehood and forum hunting. Litigants can be party to malicious litigation and should be seriously reprimanded. The Hon’ble Supreme Court imposed cost of Rs.25 Lakhs on the Respondent who had indulged in such act, to be deposited within four weeks.”

Advocate Mathew Nedumpara represented the Petitioner, while AGP Prashant Kamble appeared for the Respondents.

The Petitioner, a promoter and guarantor of M/s. Perfect Infraengineers Ltd., sought to declare that the concept of absolute judicial immunity was antithetical to the concept of rule of law.

The Respondents highlighted the “chequered history” of litigation initiated by the Petitioner, pointing to repeated filings of petitions on identical issues. They argued that the Petitioner was “indulging in forum shopping” and had included prayers identical to those in earlier dismissed Petitions.

The Court referred to earlier proceedings passed by the NCLT and noted that these orders had already been subjected to challenge in other proceedings. The Court observed that the Petitioner had failed to exhaust alternative remedies before filing the Writ Petition.

The Court also pointed out that the Petitioner had filed a number of Petitions raising similar issues and noted that interim and main prayers in the present Petition were nearly identical to those in previously dismissed cases. It found that the Petitioner’s conduct amounted to a “wastage of time of the court.”

Consequently, the Court, while dismissing the Petition, held, “Taking into account all the above factors, this Writ Petition is dismissed, with costs.” Costs of Rs.5 lakh were imposed, for duplication of prayers and for making “unsubstantiated, baseless and unfounded allegations.”

Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the Petition.

Cause Title: Manisha Nimesh Mehta v. Technology Development Board & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:BHC-OS:21189-DB)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Advocates Mathew Nedumpara and Hemali Merva,

Respondents: AGP Prashant Kamble and Himashu Takke; Advocates Sumedh Ruikar, Viraj Shelatkar, Pradip Yadav, Anshul Anjarlekar, Yahya Batatawala and Shneha Mishra

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