Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
In Re : Smt. Supriti Saha vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors on 12 September, 2018
Author: Tapabrata Chakraborty
Bench: Tapabrata Chakraborty
1
12.09.2018
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Item No 14 Court No.15 Avijit Mitra W.P. No.11287 (W) of 2018 In re : Smt. Supriti Saha
- Versus -
The State of West Bengal & Ors.
Mr. Mainak Bose, Mr. Sufi Kamal, Mr. Deepnath Roy Chowdhury, Mr. Gourav Das For the Petitioner Mr. Subhabrata Dutta Mr. Ram Chandra Guchait For the State Respondents Mr. Alok Kumar Ghosh, Mr. Gopal Chandra Das For the KMC Mr. Rabi Sankar Chatterjee, Mr. Santanu Maji For the Respondent no.15 The present writ petition has been preferred primarily praying for the following relief:
(a) A writ of or in the nature of Mandamus do issue directing orders passed dated 23rd April, 2018, 24/04/2018 and 11/12/2017 in O.A. 25 of 2016 by National Green Tribunal, Eastern Zone at Kolkata, be annulled and/or set aside without giving any effect or further effect thereto in any manner whatsoever.
Mr. Bose, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner submits that the respondent no.15 preferred an Original Application (in short, the O.A.) being O.A. No. 25 of 2016 (EZ) before the National Green Tribunal, Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata. The petitioner herein filed an application for addition of party in the said O.A. which was allowed on 15th January, 2017. Subsequently, the O.A. was dismissed for default. For 2 recalling the said order of dismissal, the respondent no.15 filed an application being M.A. 352 of 2017 (EZ) which was allowed by an order dated 11th December, 2017.
Mr. Bose submits that the said order, as annexed at page 116 was passed by a Single Member Bench and as such the same was without jurisdiction. In support of such contention he has placed reliance upon an order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, as annexed at page 108 of the writ petition.
He further submits that an application being M.A.13/2018/EZ was filed by the respondent no.14 in the O.A. inter alia praying for recalling of the order dated 11th December, 2017 as the same suffered from a jurisdictional error having been passed by a Single Member Bench.
By an order dated 23rd April, 2018 the said order dated 11th December, 2017 was reiterated and confirmed. Subsequent thereto, by an order dated 24th April, 2018 the said order dated 23rd April, 2018 was again recalled, as would be explicit from internal page 2 of the order dated 24th April, 2018.
Mr. Bose submits that when the order dated 23rd April, 2018 restoring the O.A. has been recalled, the learned Tribunal could not have passed any interim order and no such order can survive since the O.A. is yet to be restored.
Mr. Chatterjee, learned advocate appearing for the respondent no.15, who is the applicant in the O.A., submits that the order dated 23rd April, 2018 needs to be read in its entirety, a particular line cannot be highlighted. A perusal of the said order would reveal that the learned Tribunal wanted to hear the application being M.A. 13 of 2018 further since some other points were raised in the said application, as such it cannot be construed that the order dated 23rd April, 2018 has been withdrawn in its entirety. 3
Indisputably, the petitioner is not the applicant in M.A. 13 of 2018. He is an added respondent in the O.A. who has not filed any application seeking recalling of the order dated 11th December, 2017. The order of dismissal has been reiterated and confirmed by the learned Bench consisting of two Members and the O.A. is still pending before the learned Tribunal.
In the order dated 24th April, 2018 the learned Tribunal has inter alia observed as follows :
"We later find that the MA in fact raises some other questions which require our consideration.
In view of this, the order dated 23.04.2018 dismissing the MA No.13/2018/EZ stands recalled and is restored to its original number.
It is submitted by Mr. Rabi Sankar Chattopadhyay, Ld. Counsel for the Applicant in OA that the reply to MA No. 13/2018/EZ has already been filed yesterday. Let it be taken on record.
Rest of the order shall remain unaltered."
From such observations it is clear that the order dated 23rd April, 2018 has not been recalled in its entirety. In fact the learned Tribunal wanted to hear the application M.A. No.13/2018/EZ further as it involved some other questions. As such the argument of Mr. Bose that the order dated 23rd April, 2018 has been recalled in its entirety is not acceptable to this Court.
In view thereof, this Court is unable to grant the relief as prayed for in the present writ petition and the same is, accordingly, dismissed.
There shall however be no order as to costs.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the learned advocates for the parties.
4(Tapabrata Chakraborty, J.)