DATE OF JUDGEMENT:
28th May 2021
JUDGES:
Honourable Chief Justice Mr. S. Manikumar, Honourable Justice Mr. Shaji P. Chaly
PARTIES:
(Appellants):
Pottakalathill Ramakrishnan
(Respondents):
1. Thahsildar, Tirur
2. Additional Thahsildar, Tirur
3. Village Officer, Malappuram District
OVERVIEW
The petitioner had filed a writ stating he received a piece of land as a partition deed.
He stated that he was unable to pay the property tax till a certain time, and requested the court to order the authorities to collect the property tax from him.
The judge stated that since he only wanted filing of the tax, the verdict was granted in his favour, according to which the respondents had to collect land tax from him.
When the respondents claimed that they did not receive the tax, the appellant filed a contempt case against them.
During the course of this contempt case, the respondents filed a counter-affidavit stating that the petitioner was not in possession of the entire land.
They presented materials which stated that some parts of the land had been sold out by the mother of the appellant.
On analysing all the material put forward before the Single Judge, he reviewed his judgement and stated that the petitioner did not come to the court with clean hands.
The petitioner contented that the judge cannot review the judgement which was presented in the form of a writ.
The High Court dismissed this petition by stating that the judge was right in his decision to review the judgement, and had the authority to do so.
IMPORTANT PROVISIONS
Article 215 of the Constitution – this article states that the high courts are courts of record. As per this article, every high court will be considered as a court of record and will be empowered with powers of such a court, which will include the power of punishment in cases of contempt of itself.
Article 226 of the Constitution – this article discusses the power which the High Court is entitled with to issue writ petitions.
Section 141 of Code of Civil Procedure – this section states that the procedure which has been provided within this code, with respect to a suit shall be followed as far as it can be made applicable.
ISSUES
1. Whether the petition was maintainable?
2. Whether the learned single judge had the power to review his judgement?
ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGEMENT
The appellant in this particular case had claimed that he along with his mother and sisters, got about 13.51 acres of land as per the partition deed. It was further mentioned that except for 2 acres of land, the remaining 11.51 acres was still in the possession of the appellant and his mother. He also mentioned that it was on verification of the records that he got to know, that the property tax had only been paid up-to the year 1971, after which he could not pay the tax regularly. He also mentioned that it was in 1997 that he approached the Village Officer and the tax was not accepted. It was after this, in 2014 that he filed for a writ petition, by which he prayed that the thahsildar should accept the tax. After hearing both the sides, the judge stated that since the appellant only wants that the tax should be accepted, and since according to the deed, the petitioner and his mother claim to have the property. It was also mentioned that acceptance of the basic tax will not entitle the petitioner to claim over the property. It was because the respondents did not receive the tax as it had been directed by the learned Judge, a contempt case had been filed by the appellant. A counter application was filed by the respondents during the course of the contempt case. The appellant stated that in the counter affidavit by the respondents, it was stated that appellant is the registered holder of the land, however, the appellants did not have the actual possession over the entire extent of the land. They also contended that as per the Land Tax Act of 1961, the registered land holders are not entitled to pay taxes unless their name has been changed as per the Transfer of Registry Rules of 1966.
The appellant also mentioned that in the review petition by the respondents they have stated that the major portion of the land which has been claimed by the appellant was with the outsiders and they had been receiving taxes from them. The question raised in this review petition was, whether land tax could be collected from an individual who did not have title or possession of the land.
To counter this, the appellant pleaded that :
- The judge has failed to understand the parameters under Article 215 of the Constitution, by entertaining a review of its order in the writ petition.
- The judge has discarded the basic essentials of entertaining a review petition
- The judge has failed to understand, as to who is entitled to file a review petition
- The judge should have identified the malafide intentions of the respondents by applying for a review petition while the contempt petition was pending
- The judge should have dismissed the review petition as it aimed at delaying, and could not even raise any legal grounds, and did not consider either the land tax rules or the provisions of the Constitution.
1. Further the learned counsel for the appellant referred to Section 141 of the Civil Procedure Code and stated that the procedure which has been mentioned in the court with regards to the suit shall be followed as far as it can be considered applicable in all the proceedings of any court having civil jurisdiction apart from the proceedings under Article 226 of the constitution and this is the reason that the review petition should not be considered as maintainable. He relied on the judgement of ‘Balan V. Shyamala ' to state that the power of review is conferred by the statute and the court does not inherit the power to review. He relied on another case of ‘Ram Kinkar Das V. State of Bihar and Ors. ’ and mentioned that the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure are not applicable to the writ proceedings, he also relied on the case of ‘George V. State of Kerala ’ to back this point.
The court stated that as per the material on record, suggests that as per annexures E to G, The mother of the appellant had already entered in two transactions and had alienated several parts of the property, they also show that she was a party to the document which displayed that tax was being paid by a third party. The material rather suggests that the purchase certificates in annexures G&H, that were issued to the third parties in respect of three acres of property and the other was of 3.1 acres after the notice to the appellant's mother. All these facts had been suppressed by the appellant in the writ petition despite the fact that the transactions were made by his mother. Considering this situation if these documents had been produced in the petition then the petitioner would not have secured the direction to receive the revenue tax since the properties had already been transferred and tax was being received from other people and this states that there has been suppression of material facts intentionally in order to mislead the judge, And it is on this aspect that the court has decided to consider the following decisions: ‘Arunima Baruah V. Union of India ' which raised the question regarding the extent to which relief should be denied when one does not come with clean hands to the court. In the case of ‘Moody V. Cox ’ this question was partially answered as it had been stated that the principal of equity will apply till the point where the dirt in the hand of the petitioner has an immediate and necessary relation to the equity for which they have been sued. In the other case of ‘Prestige Lights Ltd. V. State Bank of India ’ it had been held that when extraordinary power is being exercised by the court then the court has to keep in mind the party who is invoking the injunction. If facts have been hidden or misrepresented by the petitioner then the court can dismiss the petition without even hearing the matter.
Moreover, in the case of ‘Udyami Evam Khadi Gramodyog Welfare Sanstha and another V. State of Uttar Pradesh ’ this principle of approaching a court with clean hands had been emphasized. Cases like ‘Amar Singh V. Union of India & Others ' and ‘Dalip Singh V. State of U.P and Others ' also focus on it and state it to be an important aspect in every case. The last case also talks about how the judicial system gave this principle a new light by stating that those who dare to pollute the fountain of justice with dirty hands will not be entitled to any relief, be it interim or final. The other set of cases like ‘Dalglish V. Jarvie ' , ‘Castelli V. Cook ' and ‘Republic of Peru V. Dreyfus Brothers & Company ' spoke about how the absolute revealing of the material facts by the one approaching the court is absolutely essential and necessary. There have been so many other cases where coming to the court with clean hands has been reiterated by the court, some of them are: ‘Hari Narain V. Badri Das ' , ‘Welcome Hotel and Ors. V. State of A.P. and Ors. ’ , ‘G. Narayanaswamy Reddy and Anr. V. Government of Karnataka and Anr. ’ , ‘S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu V. Jagannath and Ors.’ , ‘A.V. Papayya Sastry and Ors. V. Govt. Of A.P. and Ors.’, ‘Sunil Poddar and Ors. V. Union Bank of India’ , ‘K.D. Sharma V. SAIL and Ors.’ , G. Jayashree and Ors. V. Bhagwandas S. Patel and Ors.’
2. The court stated that after having a detailed discussion over the facts, it can be clearly stated that the single judge was initially under the impression that all the facts and circumstances had been placed by the appellant before the court, which is why he directed the respondent to accept the basic tax from the appellant. It was after the review petition had been filed by the respondents, that the judge realised that there was more to the case and certain facts had been hidden by the petitioner, and thus, he accordingly reviewed his judgement. The appeal was hence, not considered as maintainable before the court, due to the hiding of facts by the petitioner, which were very relevant to the issue at hand. The petitioner had raised a variety of contentions, along with substantiating the point that there is no power to enable the review of a judgement which has been passed in a writ petition and the court said that it is not acceptable because, it has been settled very well that the High Court being a court of record it is empowered by Article 226 of the Constitution, to review a judgement if it has been found that there was a suppression of the facts or any material relevant to the case which led to granting of a verdict in the favour of the petitioner which was not right. It was also mentioned that the Learned Single Judge has considered the issues which have been raised by the appellant in a very elaborate manner and has relied on the propositions of law which have been laid down by the Supreme Court in a variety of judgments and thus arrived at a conclusion to review the judgement, which is of a completely fair nature. The court also stated that they do not feel that the Learned Single Judge has committed any error or an illegal action by exercising the discretion to interfere with the judgement.
CONCLUSION
Our nation has a very extensive legal system, which provides every citizen with the hope and the opportunity to gain justice. Our primary focus is to ensure that no detail, irrespective of its size, is not ignored in any particular case, which is one of the reasons behind the cases going on for a long period of time. Being one of the largest democracies, our constitution also provides for instances where-in the wrongs committed by the court can be undone, so that no innocent suffers. The courts stand as a pillar of democracy, and to ensure that one individual does not gain by making the other suffer is the reason that reviewing judgements is something our courts are empowered with. Truth, and being truthfulness might have become less common today, but it does not mean that, it is lost. The truth always has and will always prevail, which is why our legal system ensures that every individual has the chance to do so. A case like this is something which helps us in restoring the faith in the working of our legal system, and also helps us to understand that mistakes can happen even in the court of law, but that does not mean that there is no solution for them.
Click here to download the original copy of the judgement
