Discrepancies In DOB; Age Doesn’t Match With One Specified In Affidavit: Madras HC Imposes ₹20L Cost & Restrains Litigant From Filing PILs For A Year

The Madras High Court has imposed a cost of Rs. 20 lakhs on a Litigant and has restrained him from filing PILs (Public Interest Litigations) for a year.

The Court was deciding a Writ Petition styled as PIL preferred against the Government Order and seeking direction to mark the land as “reserved forest land”.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice K.R. Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy observed, “… there is discrepancy even as between the date of birth specified in the Aadhaar card of the petitioner and that specified in the PAN card. The age mentioned by the petitioner when he appeared in person in Court also does not match the age specified in the affidavit. As stated earlier, in spite of filing a 35 page affidavit containing several details about lands in S.No.209 of Tirumullaivoyal village, the affidavit is completely silent about the de-notification of the reserved forest land. Given the extensive nature of the affidavit, the only reasonable inference is that the omission of this material fact was intentional.”

The Bench noted that there is discrepancy between the age of the affiant, as mentioned in the affidavit, and the age mentioned in the documents appended to the affidavit.

Advocate Samir S. Shah represented the Petitioner while Senior Advocates Satish Parasaran and P. Wilson represented the Respondents. Advocate R. Tholgappian was appointed as the Advocate Commissioner.

Facts of the Case -

The affiant was described as a 67-year-old person and the Affidavit contained the assertion that his annual income was more than Rs. 5 lakhs. A land was classified as “reserved forest land” since the year 1905 as per the Re-survey, Re-settlement Paisalathy Register. According to the Petitioner, the said land was later sub-divided and an extent of 40.95 acres was mentioned as “reserved forest land”. While the Respondents denied that the said extent of 40.95 acres was “reserved forest land” at the time of assignment, the common ground between the parties was that such land was assigned to Imperial Chemical Industries (India) Limited (the Assignee) in 1942 subject to the terms and conditions specified in the order of assignment.

Thereafter, a show-cause notice was issued to the Assignee regarding the proposed revocation of lease and eventually, the resumption of land for violation of the terms and conditions of assignment was upheld by the Special Commissioner-cum-Commissioner of Land Administration. This Order was challenged and the Writ Petition was dismissed. The Appeal was, however, allowed. The Petitioner sought a direction to mark the land as “reserved forest land” in all revenue records; put up a sign board indicating that it is reserved forest land; and prevent any person from trespassing upon, alienating or encumbering the land.

The High Court in view of the above facts, said, “There is also discrepancy between the annual income of Rs.5 lakhs mentioned in the petition and the petitioner's answer in Court that the annual income is about Rs.3 lakhs. Significantly, when questioned in Court, the petitioner stated that he can read but cannot understand English. However, not only is the affidavit signed in English, but most of the documents referred to and relied upon therein are in the English language.”

The Court remarked that either the Petitioner lied in Court or he has been set up as a front by somebody to orchestrate the Petition and in either case, it is just and necessary to impose costs on the Petitioner so as to deter the filing of Petitions, particularly by way of PILs, misstating or suppressing facts with oblique motives.

“In this connection, the 12 th respondent placed on record several news releases shortly after this petition was filed, in the television and print media, indicating that reserved forest land was alienated in favour of a private party. Irrespective of whether such news releases originated from the petitioner, this would certainly have caused significant losses to the business and reputation of the 12 th respondent”, it added.

The Court concluded that, it is appropriate to not only impose costs on the Petitioner but also restrain him from filing PILs in the High Court for a year without obtaining prior permission.

Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the Writ Petition, imposed Rs. 20 lakhs on the Petitioner, and restrained him from filing PILs for a year.

Cause Title- T.H. Rajmohan v. The Secretary to the Government & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:MHC:4041)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Advocates Samir S. Shah, S. John Josh, T.V. Kamalanathan, and P. Saravanan.

Respondents: Senior Advocates Satish Parasaran, P. Wilson, AAG J. Ravindran, Government Pleader A. Edwin Prabakar, Special Government Pleader T. Seenivasan, CGSC V. Sudha, Standing Counsels R.A. Gopinath, R. Thamaraiselvan.

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