Unfortunate that Court is engaged to dispose of stale representations in writ petitions, made to act like a Post Office: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court on Tuesday lamented that it is made to act like a "post office" in dealing with writ petitions devoid of any material that seek directions to various authorities to consider representations by the petitioners (V Prabhudoss v. The District Collector and ors). .In this regard, Justice N Anand Venkatesh noted that in many such cases, the writ petitions are filed only a week after a representation is sent to the authorities, instead of waiting for a response from the concerned authority. ."In many cases, this Court finds that the litigants are using the writ jurisdiction of this Court to dispose of the representation and in most of the cases, this Court is acting like a Post Office. It is quite unfortunate that a constitutional Court exercising its writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is being engaged on a daily basis to dispose of stale representations by mechanically issuing directions to various authorities to consider the representations", Justice Venkatesh said..The mechanical disposal of such writ petitions is virtually eating the valuable time of the High Court and comes in the way of disposing of genuine cases awaiting an effective hearing for a long time, the Judge remarked.."In most of the cases, the typed-set of papers contains a representation and an acknowledgement card and this becomes a cause of action for filing a Writ Petition before this Court. Such Writ Petitions virtually saps the energy of the Registry right from numbering these writ petitions till making the order copies ready", the Judge explained. .He further expressed anguish that writ petitions filed ten years ago are still pending, partly because such "mandamus" writ petitions consume most of the Court's time. .“It is really painful to take note of the fact that writ petitions filed 10 years ago are pending before this Court without a final disposal and this Court is not able to take up those cases because of mandamus cases which consume most of the time of this Court even at the stage of admission", stated the order. .Emphasising that the Court cannot assume the role of a middleman between petitioners and the authority concerned, Justice Venkatesh opined that it is high time that the Court becomes strict while dealing with such petitions. ."It is high time that this Court does some self introspection and becomes more stern and strict while dealing with the relief seeking for disposing of representations. At the end of the day, this Court should not demean its status and act like a middleman between the petitioner and the authority concerned", he said..The Court also sought to send a message to the Bar that they must also introspect before filing such cases in the future. The Judge has cautioned that the Court will impose costs if it finds that such writ petitions have been filed without material or if the Court is approached without giving the concerned authority time to act on the petitioner's representation..The Court was dealing with writ petitions making a claim for the issuance of patta land in the names of the petitioners. The Judge found that only one representation on the issue had been sent to the authority on June 7, 2021. .On finding that the petitions were devoid of details, the Court proceeded to dismiss them, commenting, "If writ petitions of this nature are entertained by this Court and orders are passed, a stage may come where people will take for granted the powers of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. This extraordinary power given to the High Courts cannot be wasted in issuing useless directions.".In the course of the order, the Judge also observed that innocuous directions issued by the Court may also be misused when it is taken to the authorities and made to look like a favourable order. In this way, a person who does not have any right over the property may be issued patta on misquoting the Court's orders, the Judge said. .[Read Order]