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viii) "Would the Managing Directors and the officers of CIDCO have entertained these applicants who are principally slum dwellers for the prime plot known as "Marine Drive of Navi Mumbai". If they were to approach them without being led by these traders and supported by a builder and without the blessing of the Chief Minister? (para 139)"

Mr. G.E. Vahanvati, learned Solicitor General of India and Mr. Ravi Kadam, learned Advocate General for the State of Maharashta have appeared and argued the matter on behalf of the appellant. Mr. Chander Uday Singh, learned senior counsel appeared and countered the argument of the appellant on behalf of the contesting Ist respondent. Mr. Altaf Ahmed, learned senior counsel appeared for the CIDCO. The learned Solicitor General argued the matter at length and invited our attention to the strictures and remarks made by the High Court against the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra Mr. Sushil Kumar Shinde and the documents at page Nos. 139, 141, 145, 147 and 149 and also the pleadings and other annexures.

5. A.K.K. Nambiar vs. Union of India & Anr. 1969 (3) SCC 864 at 867 (para 8 & 9).

Mr. Chander Uday Singh, learned senior counsel for the first respondent (writ petitioner) submitted that the first respondent filed the writ petition by way of PIL in order to expose a massive and orchestrated scam by which CIDCO a special planning authority constituted under the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act, 1966 has diverted public lands intended for genuine cooperative housing societies to a small coterie of commercial builders/developers and thereby conferred massive commercial largesse upon such builders/developers while simultaneously causing losses to CIDCO and the members of the general public. According to him, small coteries of builders/developers approached the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra and by addressing applications directly to him in the name of societies on identical or suspiciously similar computer generated stationery/letter heads made specific requests for allotment of prime plots of land by expressly mentioning the plot or plots desired by them and that the Chief Minister endorsed each such application with the words "please put up" and thereupon these applications were hand delivered to CIDCO's Head Office at Nariman Point, Mumbai and that these applications were assigned inward numbers thereby signifying that they are recommended by the Chief Minister and on the very same date, when they were received by CIDCO at Nirmal, the Vice Chairman and M.D. added their endorsements reading please process early or words to that effect. He would further submit that the Chief Minister's recommendation proved so compelling that CIDCO instantly allotted the chosen plots for residential user even though the classification and earmarking of these plots was commercial plus residential on the development plan of CIDCO thereby causing loss to CIDCO of the much higher premium available on C+R lands. It was submitted by learned senior counsel for the respondent that the High Court pronounced a detailed and well-reasoned judgment which dealt with the entire subterfuge resorted to in order to make such dummy allotments at the behest of the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and have been dealt with in great detail by the Division Bench. He further submitted that the first respondent filed the writ petition in the High Court since there had been violations of law as well as of CIDCO's land allotment policy, inter alia, in making allotments to cooperative societies and that the first respondent had learnt that these allotments had been made on the basis of the recommendations by the then Chief Minister or other High functionaries acting at his behest and that all rules and norms had been disregarded by CIDCO as a consequence of such recommendations. Respondent No. 1 accordingly pleaded in para 4 and 14 of the writ petition that it appeared that these illegal allotments had been made at the behest of the Chief Minister or other Ministers of the Government of Maharashtra and in para 14 have specifically called upon CIDCO to confirm or deny this fact. According to the first respondent, it is apparent from the documents produced before the High Court and the manner in which allotments were made by CIDCO that this was done only on the behest of the then Chief Minister. Learned senior counsel for the first respondent further submitted that the special leave petition was filed to seek expunction of certain adverse comments made against the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra was filed by the State of Maharashtra and not by Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde. According to the learned counsel, it is not open to the State of Maharashtra to now file a special leave petition to challenge the said findings or remarks and that if at all anybody is aggrieved by the said finding or remarks, it would be the former Chief Minister and he had chosen not to file any special leave petition nor to question the same. Hence, the present special leave petition is not maintainable. While winding up his argument, learned senior counsel for the first respondent made a prayer that he would now implead the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra - Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde as a party respondent and that permission in that regard may be granted to him in view of the importance of the public interest litigation. We have given our anxious and careful consideration to the submissions made by both the learned senior counsel. We have also carefully perused the pleadings, documents, annexures and the rulings cited at the time of hearing. Various applications and representations on diverse subjects are received by the Chief Ministers of the States as the Head of the State and in respect of the Ministries under their control. Often such applications are directly addressed by members of the public to the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister then endorses the same to the concerned department so that the same my subsequently be followed up by the concerned department. When the Chief Minister is on tour in various parts of the State, representations and applications are given to him by various people who meet him. In the routine course, the Chief Minister endorses the same with a noting "please put up" and forward the same to the concerned department. Such notation merely means that the concerned department should process the applications and representations lawfully and in accordance with certain prescribed procedure. While making such notations on the representations/applications so received, the Chief Minister does not analyse each and every case since this is to be done at the level of the concerned department which then scrutinizes the same in accordance with law. In our view, the notation is not even treated as a determination of eligibility or the merit of the concerned application. It is a routine notation made in the normal course and is really an action of forwarding to the concerned department the representations/applications received by the Chief Minister. The concerned department is then expected to examine the said representations/applications and decide the same on its own merits and in accordance with law. As rightly pointed out by learned Solicitor General as to how he treats the file the nomenclature given to such matters are of matters of internal administration of the concerned department/corporation. It is pointed out to us that in the present case, the Chief Minister was heading the Urban Development Department. CIDCO comes under the administrative control of the said department. Since applications for allotment of land were received by the Chief Minister, he merely made a notation that the applications be put up before the concerned authority. No notation whatsoever was made that the applications be processed by any particular date. The words please put up, in our opinion, only meant that the applications should be processed and decided in accordance with law and on its own merits. CIDCO which is a Corporation had detailed rules which govern the allotment of land and are to be complied with by CIDCO before any allotment of land is made. The records placed before us indicates that the applications put up to CIDCO were processed at various levels including the marketing manager, assistant marketing officer, managing director and upto the stage of board of directors. In our view, the observations and strictures made by the High Court and are extracted in paragraphs supra certainly reflects on the functioning of the office of the Chief Minister and day-today discharge of the duties of the Chief Minister. As rightly pointed out by learned Solicitor General, after the endorsement 'please put up', is made the file may or may not be approved by the concerned department and it is clear that the said notations are not approval of the contents of the representation and in our view, no other meaning could be taken. The observations/strictures made and the inference drawn by the High Court from the notation please put up made by the Chief Minister are not warranted and are required to be expunged as rightly contended by learned senior counsel for the State of Maharashtra. The High Court has, in our view, erred in holding that by making a notation please put up the applicants had blessings of the then Chief Minister. In our opinion, the civil appeal at the instance of the State of Maharashtra is maintainable inasmuch as the observations and strictures made by the High Court shall affect the working and functioning of the office of the Chief Minister of the State of Maharashtra. The submission of learned senior counsel for the first respondent that the first respondent had learnt that these averments had been made on the basis of the recommendations by the Chief Minister or other high functionaries acting at his behest and that all the rules and norms had been disregarded by CIDCO as a consequence of such recommendations as absolutely no basis whatsoever. The grievances expressed against the then Chief Minister is nothing but imaginary. Except making the endorsement 'please put up' the Chief Minister has not played any other role. The observations and strictures passed by the High Court against the then Chief Minister behind his back and without calling for an explanation from him is wholly illegal, incorrect and unwarranted and that the remarks made by the High Court against the then Chief Minister was most uncharitable and not called for.

We are of the opinion that the strictures/observations/remarks made by the High Court against the then Chief Minister Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde is not warranted in the facts and circumstances of this case as according to us the High Court has erred in making observations as regards notations made in files which observations are made on their own reading and interpretation of the files without any further reference to the petitions or the then Chief Minister who was not even a party to the case and without even calling for an explanation in that regard. The High Court has failed to notice that the Chief Minister was heading the Urban Development Department and CIDCO comes under the administrative control of the urban development and since the applications for allotment of land were received by the Chief Minister, who merely made a notation that the application be put up before the concerned authority. The High Court also erred in observing that the application made by respondent No. 10 had been received by the Chief Minister and bore his endorsement on 05.04.2005 to the effect please process and pass by 12.04.2004. We have perused the said document. The above endorsement is not written by the Chief Minister and in fact the said application did not even reach the office of the Chief Minister at any point of time.

For the foregoing reasons, we have no hesitation in expunging the remarks/observations/strictures made against the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra - Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde and allow the appeal filed by the State of Maharashtra who, in our opinion, is competent to maintain this appeal and order expunction of the remarks and observations/strictures made against the then Chief Minister. The appeal stands allowed only to the above extent. We make it clear that we are not expressing any opinion on merits of the rival claims made in the other special leave petition filed by the cooperative societies in special leave petition No. 336 of 2006 which will be dealt with separately.