Building case: Karnataka High Court fines petitioner for concealing facts

Bengaluru: “They say one should never hide anything from your doctors and lawyers ...” In one such classic case of concealing facts from cthe court, the petitioner ended up facing the judicial wrath and was also fined for his actions.

A 40-year-old resident of Virajpet in Kodagu district had approached the high court seeking to quash the order of cancellation of his building licence. The authorities concerned had canceled the licence for building illegal construction much in excess of the sanctioned plan.

Later, the petitioner had approached a trial court against the cancellation order. The trial court had rejected his application for temporary injunction.

Following which he approached the High Court seeking relief in the matter. However, the petitioner concealed this fact before the High Court that he had approached the trial court and his application for temporary injunction was rejected. “The petitioner has approached this court with ‘unclean hands’ and concealed material facts from this court and is, therefore, not entitled to any relief in exercise of the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution. On the contrary, such negligent and nonchalant litigants deserve to be dealt with strongly to avoid any possible misuse of this equity and extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court,” the High Court observed in its judgment.

It further said that it cannot be believed that the petitioner was not aware of this fact of filing of the Civil Suit and rejection of his temporary injunction application by the trial court on June 17, 2016 when he filed these writ petitions in this court on June 22, 2017 with his own sworn affidavit.

“Not a whisper about the filing of the suit and the rejection of Temporary Injunction of the application by the trial court has been made in the present writ petitions.”

The court also expressed displeasure against the advocate representing the petitioner. “It was definitely the duty of the advocate appearing for the petitioner to take complete facts relating to the matter into account and not only disclose them in the petitions itself, but to bring it to the notice of the court specifically and positively.”

Before coming to know that the petitioner had concealed such facts, the court has directed the authorities concerned to deposit Rs 25,000 with the Registry from their personal resource, for not responding to its summons in the case.

“The facts now revealed before this court turns these tables on to the petitioner himself. Actually it is the petitioner who has to bear the brunt and misled by the concealment of material facts by the petitioner and the advocate appearing for the petitioner, not only the Public Officers were directed by this court to appear before this court today leaving their offices, where they could be expected to discharge their public functions for public services,” the court said. While dismissing the petition the high court imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the petitioner to be paid to the two officials.

The court also made it clear that the officials were now free to proceed against the petitioner’s construction in accordance with law.