Supreme Court restores petition filed in 1987 before Uttarakhand High Court

The Supreme Court recently restored a writ petition filed in 1987 before the Uttarakhand High Court in a land acquisition matter [JN Puri vs State of Uttar Pradesh now State of Uttarakhand and ors]..The High Court had dismissed the matter for non-prosecution and had also dismissed a plea to restore the case, leading to an appeal before the Supreme Court.A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta directed the High Court to decide the matter afresh on merits after hearing all parties."[Considering] the fact that the appellant still claims to be in possession of the land under acquisition, we feel that the writ petition preferred by the appellant should have been heard and decided on merits," the Court said..The appellant moved the Supreme Court after being aggrieved by orders passed in March 2019 and August 2020 by the Uttarakhand High Court. By these orders, the High Court had dismissed the appellant's pleas to restore his writ petition filed 34 years ago challenging land acquisition proceedings in relation to his property. The High Court had dismissed the original writ in 1992 for lack of prosecution. The appellant then filed an application for restoration on that ground that one of his counsel in the matter had been elevated to the bench which led him to believe that the matter would be deferred.In 1999, he filed another application for the matter to be taken up expeditiously but the proceedings were eventually dismissed in 2001, again for want of prosecution.It was only after the appellant filed an RTI application in November 2019, that he became aware that his matter was no longer pending before the High Court.After the High Court again refused to indulge him, he moved the top court for relief..The Supreme Court held that the High Court was not right in dismissing the restoration applications for non-prosecution on the ground of a seven-year delay."As a matter of fact, the application for restoration was filed within a period of one month which fact has been admitted at para 5 of the counter affidavit filed by the State of Uttar 6 Pradesh/Uttarakhand(respondent no. 1). The said application was never considered on merits," the Court noted..The appeals were, thus, allowed and the matter was restored with a direction to the High Court to decide the same on merits. .Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave appeared for the appellant (original writ petitioner before the High Court), one JN Puri..[Read Judgment]