When An Order Of State Authority Claimed To Have Affected Individual Rights, No Collective Action Can Be Brought: Calcutta High Court

The Court was hearing a Writ Petition challenging the order passed by the authority in the exercise of its power under Section 10 of the West Bengal Highways Act, 1964.

The bench of Justice Aniruddha Roy observed, “When an order of the State authority claimed to have affected the rights of these two petitioners’ individual rights, they have their own remedy in law, for which, no collective action can be brought neither is maintainable.”

Senior Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya appeared for the Petitioners and Senior Government Advocate Santanu Kumar Mitra appeared for the Respondent.

The issue in the present Writ Petition was previously disposed of by the coordinate bench with a direction upon the respondent to consider the case of those petitioners in the manner and mode as directed. Pursuant to the said direction, the respondent considered the issue and passed the impugned order where the two petitioners along with others were found to be alleged encroachers of public land and possession was directed to be recovered from them. The two petitioners and the other eight individuals preferred their separate appeals before the statutory Appellate Authority under Section 10(4) of the said 1964 Act.

The Court said that the earlier Writ Petition had not acquired representative capacity. The instant Writ Petition also has two individual Writ Petitioners who have filed their respective statutory appeals. “the cause espoused in this writ petition is not a cause to be treated as a public interest litigation and it is an individual cause.”, the Court said.

The Court said that the Writ Petition cannot acquire representative character while noting that, “All the individual appellants, admittedly, have filed their respective individual appeals. The cause in every appeal is independent of each other.”

Accordingly, the Court disposed of the Writ Petition.