Madhya Pradesh High Court
Narmada Bachao Andolan vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 30 September, 2014
W.P. No. 1359/2009 (PIL)
CONC No. 668/2012
30.09.2014
W.P. No. 1359/2009 (PIL)
Mrs. Shobha Menon, Senior Advocate with Mr.
Rahul Choubey, Advocate as Amicus Curiae.
Mr. Rajendra Tiwari, Senior Advocate assisted by
Shri H.K. Upadhyay and Shri A.J. Pawar, Advocate for
the respondent No.2.
Limited issue that is required to be answered today in terms of order dated 9th September, 2014 is: whether the petition presented by unregistered Association is properly instituted petition and can be taken forward?
Indubitably, any petition/proceedings can be instituted and prosecuted only by a living or a juristic person. Unregistered Association, not being a juristic person nor a living person, therefore, cannot be permitted to do so. Nevertheless, if the issue raised in the petition is concerning public at large or to espouse the cause of section of persons by unregistered Association, the office bearers of such Association must be named as co-petitioners. The Court can permit those office bearers to espouse such a cause in representative capacity or in public interest, as the case may be. This position is no more res integra.
Learned Amicus Curiae has invited our attention to the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Akhil Bharatiya Shoshit Karmchari Sangh (Railway) vs. Union of India and others reported in (1981) 1 SCC
246. In para-62 of this judgment, the Apex Court negatived this technical point in the following words:
"A technical point is taken in the counter- affidavit that petitioner 1 is an unrecognized association and that, therefore, the petitioner to that extent, is not sustainable. It has to be overruled. Whether the petitioners belong to a recognized union or not, the fact remains that a large body of persons with a common grievance exists and they have approached this Court under Article 32. Our current processual jurisprudence is not of individualistic. Anglo-Indian mould. It is broad-based and people-oriented, and envisions access to justice through 'class actions', 'public interest litigation' and 'representative proceedings'. Indeed, little Indians in large numbers seeking remedies in courts through collective proceedings, instead of being driven to an expensive plurality of litigations, is an affirmation of participative justice in our democracy. We have no hesitation in holding that the narrow concept of 'cause of action' and 'person aggrieved' and individual litigation is becoming obsolescent in some jurisdictions. It must fairly be stated that the learned Attorney-General has taken no objection to a non-recognised association maintaining the writ petitions."
A priori, the question is: whether the present petition has been instituted only by the unregistered Association or additionally by some office bearer as co- petitioner? No doubt, in the present petition the cause title would indicate that the petition is filed only by the unregistered Association through Ms. Chitraroopa Palit. As the cause brought before the Court in the present petition concerns public at large, as is stated in the petition, we may ignore the format of the petition and the cause title. In other words, petition will have to be treated as having been filed by Ms. Chitraroopa Palit to espouse the cause of inhabitants of Maheshwar Dam area. The matter can proceed on that basis.
The petitioner shall prepare brief submissions and, in particular, in the form of bullet points of issues that she intends to raise, for which, she is free to take the assistance of learned Amicus Curiae. On the next date, after the submissions are presented, we may consider of passing appropriate direction or orders, as may be necessary.
We have impressed upon the petitioner that the submissions should be confined to the matters, which are within the scope of judicial review in exercise of writ jurisdiction and that the arguments will be confined to only those issues.
List on 28th October, 2014 under caption "Directions".
(A.M. Khanwilkar) (Anil Sharma)
Chief Justice Judge
S/