Summary
The Supreme Court dismissed a special leave petition against the High Court's refusal to condone a delay of 4088 days in filing a second review petition against a 2009 judgment upholding the petitioner's removal from service, holding the petition to be part of a long course of frivolous, repetitive litigation and forum shopping, and imposed costs of Rs. 1,00,000.
Issues
- Whether the High Court erred in refusing to condone a delay of 4088 days and in rejecting a second review petition against a judgment that had already been reviewed and affirmed by dismissal of SLPs.
- Whether the petitioner's repeated litigation on a settled grievance called for exemplary costs.
Held
- The right of access to courts is a cornerstone of democracy but is not absolute; litigants who forum shop, file repetitive meritless pleas and deliberately prolong proceedings abuse the judicial process and choke court dockets. (¶¶ 2, 3)
- Where the petitioner's removal from service for habitual unauthorised absence had been upheld by the CGIT, the High Court, a review court and this Court, an administrative reply of the Chief Justice saying nothing could be done without a proper review petition gave no foundation to reopen the matter; the High Court rightly refused to condone the delay of 4088 days and rejected the second review petition. (¶¶ 14, 15, 17, 21)
- As the petition had no merit, the Court declined even to condone the delay in filing the SLP and dismissed both the delay application and the petition. (¶ 21)
- Relying on Subrata Roy Sahara, Dalip Singh and K.C. Tharakan, the Court held that frivolous litigants who repeatedly rake up issues settled at the highest level waste judicial time needed for genuine cases, and courts at all levels have a duty to curb such litigation, including through heavy costs. (¶¶ 18, 19, 20, 22)
Result
Special leave petition and application for condonation of delay dismissed. Costs of Rs. 1,00,000 imposed on the petitioner, to be deposited with the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority within four weeks, failing which to be recovered as arrears of land revenue.