Litigants don’t have right to hop between Allahabad and Lucknow benches, must stick to one forum: Allahabad High Court

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court recently observed that merely because a litigant has a right to file a writ petition either at Allahabad or Lucknow bench, it does not give them a "kangaroo right" to hop around on whims between the two benches [Prem Prakash Yadav v. Union of India].The division bench of Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Manish Kumar highlighted a unique difficulty being faced by the Lucknow bench due to litigants choosing to file petitions related to the same subject matter before both Allahabad and Lucknow benches of the High Court.“Under Clause-14 of United Provinces High Court (Amalgamation) Order, the petitions can be transferred by the Chief Justice while sitting at Lucknow to Allahabad but same can neither be transferred by him from Allahabad to Lucknow nor any Court can summon them,” it noted.The Court explained that matters at Allahabad can only be heard at Allahabad as the Lucknow bench cannot summon them. “It creates a unique difficulty,” the Lucknow bench judges observed. .The Court underscored that the litigant in the garb of his power to choose forum cannot cause inconvenience to the Court and keep the matter pending unnecessarily in a bifurcated manner.“A party has a choice to invoke jurisdiction of this Court either at Allahabad or at Lucknow and once they have exercised the said choice, parties should restrict themselves to their initial choice of forum while filing later petitions”.Observing that such disputes were frequently occurring before the Lucknow bench, the Court said the issues needs to be solved.It added that unnecessary hurdles are created in disposal of cases when jurisdiction is changed from one place to another by the parties to the dispute..The Court was hearing a petition related to a tenant-landlord dispute. The petitioner was a practicing advocate.The maintainability of the petition was challenged by the respondents on the ground that the petitioner had previously filed two petitions in relation to the same dispute before Allahabad bench.However, the petitioner argued that the cause of action in the latest petition had arisen within the territorial jurisdiction of Lucknow as well as Allahabad. Thus, he said, the petition was maintainable.The Court concluded that the filing of the latest petition at Lucknow amounted to forum hunting.It is not the litigant's convenience alone which needs to be looked into but convenience of all related is also relevant including that of Court. .The Court opined that the case was a “glaring example” of a litigant hopping around jurisdictions. The difficulty being faced by this Court is created by the petitioner only, it added. “Hopping around forums would be highly inconvenient to the working of the Court as in the present case. Once petitioner chooses a jurisdiction, out of many available, in normal course, he should stick with the same, unless he can provide cogent reasons for his hopping around,” it added.Since that the petitioner had failed to provide any such reasons, the Court dismissed the plea with liberty to file the same at Allahabad.Advocates Chandra Kala Pandey, Prince Verma, Ravi Shanker Tewari and Santosh Kr Yadav Warsi represented the petitionerAdvocates Amarjeet Singh Rakhra, Gaurav Mehrotra, Maria Fatima, VK Dubey represented the respondents [Read Judgment]