Court should not allow litigants to misuse process of law through multiple, vexatious pleas: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the legal heirs of a litigant for filing multiple vexatious applications before the Gujarat High Court towards getting rights over certain property. [Vasant Nature Cure Hospital and Pratibha Maternity Hospital Trust and ors vs Ukaji Ramaji through legal heirs and anr].A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Dipankar Datta stated that the Gujarat High Court had erred in entertaining their applications without assigning reasons.In this case, applications were filed by the legal heirs on at least on five occasions, before being dismissed for non-prosecution. A sixth application was finally admitted by the High Court after imposing ₹15,000 as costs. The Supreme Court opined that the High Court erred to entertaining this application. ."The High Court without assigning any reason whatsoever and in very casual manner has allowed the said application i.e., MCA (for restoration) ... No litigant should be permitted to be so lethargic and apathetic much less should be permitted to misuse the process of law, as the respondents have sought to do. The High Court had committed gross error in allowing such vexatious applications and that too without assigning any reason," the top court observed..The Supreme Court proceeded to set aside the High Court's decision to entertain the application. However, the litigants were ordered to deposit the ₹15,000 costs earlier imposed by the High Court..The case at hand involved a dispute over the rights of a watchman over some property in the premises of a natural therapy center. The watchman had been given the property to reside in while he was employed by the center. He staked claim to this property after he was dismissed from service. He had sought a permanent injunction to restrain the center from interfering with his possession of the said premises.While this legal case was pending, the watchman passed away and his legal heirs continued the litigation. The matter reached the Supreme Court after the legal heirs challenged a High Court ruling that favoured the center. This appeal in Supreme Court was withdrawn by the legal heirs in 2013.Three years later, the legal heirs moved the High Court again with a review application, which was dismissed for non-prosecution. In 2016, 2017, 2018 and early 2019, four more applications were filed to restore the review plea. All these applications were dismissed by the High Court for non-prosecution. However, in late 2019, one more such application was filed, which was allowed with costs of ₹15,000..This lead to the instant appeal by the center, which was allowed by the Supreme Court. .Senior Advocate IH Syed with advocates Varinder Kumar Sharma, Deeksha Gaur, Shantanu Sharma, Aniq Kadri, Prithu Parimal, Ankit B Pandya, Jigar Rawal, and Avinash Kumar Bharti appeared for the appellants, the Vasant Nature Cure Hospital and Pratibha Maternity Hospital Trust. Advocate Ankit Acharya represented the legal heirs of the watchman..[Read Judgment]