Deprecating the “anti-poor” attitude of two stone quarry leaseholders in thwarting some persons from getting electricity connections for their residential buildings, the Madras High Court has imposed costs of Rs.10,000 on the two. It also dismissed their writ appeal against a single Judge's order.
The costs should be paid in equal proportion to the Chief Justice Relief Fund within two weeks, the court said, adding that in case of default, the Registrar-General was at liberty to recover the same as per law.
In its judgment, a Division Bench, comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and D.Hariparanthaman, said it was crystal clear that the appellants had not approached the court with clean hands, but with the sole aim of thwarting the poor writ petitioners from getting service connection to their residential buildings and also to remove their shelters in due course of time for the sake of their quarrying operations.
“Therefore, with a view to restraining such unscrupulous litigations being initiated by misusing the process of law and to be an eye-opener for such anti-poor and anti-business ethics people, we are of the view that this writ appeal shall be dismissed by mulcting the appellants with costs,” the Bench said.
Earlier, P.Lakshmi and five others filed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Superintending Engineer (SE), Tiruppur, to provide electricity connection to their houses.
They submitted that they were residing in the area for more than 10 years, but the SE rejected their applications on the ground that their lands were situated within 300 metres from the stone quarry of private persons. The petitioners were asked to produce an NOC from the Director of Mines and Minerals, Tiruppur district. The official did not heed their request. The single Judge directed the petitioners to submit their applications for electricity service connection. He also directed the board to consider their applications after specifying the conditions prescribed for power connection and grant the same.
Aggrieved against this order, C. Nataraj and N. Kumar, who were third parties to the writ proceedings and leaseholders of nearby stone quarries, filed the appeal.
In its judgment, the Bench said when pucca buildings put up by the petitioners were aged four years, the quarry leaseholders' assertion that there were no residential buildings by the time they were granted the quarry lease was palpably wrong. The leaseholders had not approached the court with clean hands, but with the aim of thwarting the petitioners from getting electricity connection. From a perusal of material, it appeared that the appellants were under the impression that if electricity connections were given to the six persons, they may, in future, rake up the plea to close down the quarries as their houses were situated within a 300-metre radius from the quarries, which was contrary to the Tamil Nadu Minor Mineral Concession Rules.
