Bombay HC Imposes ₹5 Lakh Cost For Wasting 2.5 Hours Of Court Time In Frivolous Petition
The Bombay High Court imposed a ₹5 lakh cost on a litigant for filing a frivolous writ petition that wasted over two and a half hours of the court's valuable time.
The case centered on a dispute over land that had been acquired for the Kolhapur Airport, which was owned by Minakshi Balasao Magdum, a widow, and her family. GB Industries, a registered partnership firm, had operated on the land under a leave and license agreement, which had expired in March 2020. Despite the expiration of the agreement, the firm filed a writ petition seeking compensation for the land, claiming that they were entitled to tenancy rights, and sought to prevent the dispossession of the landowners (respondents) without compensation.
The Bench of Justice GS Kulkarni and Justice Advait M Sethna expressed concern over the growing trend of frivolous litigation, stressing that such practices waste judicial resources and hinder the rights of legitimate claimants. "At the cost of wasting valuable time of the Court of more than 2.30 hours and at the cost of other litigants waiting for their turn, the petitioner consciously wasted the Court's time on such proceedings. We cannot overlook that in the present times when the pressure on the Court is mounting, litigants persist to assert such frivolous pleas," the Court remarked.
The Court found the firm's claims baseless, noting that its license had expired and that the firm had no legal standing to assert tenancy rights.
Advocate Shrikrishna Ganbavle appeared for the petitioner and Advocate R.M. Haridas appeared for the Respondents.
During the proceedings, the firm’s counsel spent nearly fifty minutes trying to argue the case, but the Court found that the firm had already failed in a previous civil suit where it sought to establish a tenant-landlord relationship, which was not supported by the expired license agreement.
The Court concluded that the writ petition and the earlier suit were filed with the sole intention of harassing the landowners and preventing them from receiving the land acquisition compensation. The Court further added, “Such untenable persistence of the litigant cannot be brushed aside lightly. The Court would certainly not countenance abuse of the process of law. The litigants who can afford to abuse the process of law on the strength of resources available to them to litigate, certainly would be an aspect which cannot be overlooked by the Court in dismissing such proceedings with exemplary costs,"
In response, the Court imposed a ₹5 lakh cost on GB Industries, ordering the amount to be paid within two weeks. It warned that failure to do so would result in the recovery of the amount as land revenue, with the firm’s assets and the personal properties of its partners potentially being attached.
Cause Title: GB Industries Reg. Partnership v. Minakshi Balasao Magdum & Ors.,
Appearance:
Petitioners: Advocate Shrikrishna Ganbavle, along with Advocates Ruturaj Pawar, Dheeraj Patil
Respondents: Advocate R.M. Haridas and Advocates Prasad P. Kulkarni, Somanath Thongal, and Ananda Chavan, Additional Government Pleader A.I. Patel and Advocates M.S. Bane, Nitin Deshpande
