Writ Petition Not Maintainable Once Statutory Revision Against Same Order Is Withdrawn As 'Not Pressed': Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has held that a writ petition under Article 226 is not maintainable where the petitioner had already challenged the same order in a statutory revision and then got the revision concluded as “not pressed”. Such a withdrawal, it held, amounts to abandonment of the claim and attracts the Rule of Public Policy.

The Rule of Public Policy, as the Court explained it, bars a fresh suit where the earlier suit has been abandoned and is enshrined in Order XXIII Rules 1 to 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Its application to writ jurisdiction under Article 226 is no longer res integra, the Court noted, having been settled in Sarguja Transport Services v. State and Upadhyay & Co. v. State of U.P. and others.

The bench of Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Kunal Ravi Singh held,

“..we see no reason as to why the same principle cannot be applied in the present case where the statutory remedy has been withdrawn, and then a writ petition has been filed. If the statutory forum had no jurisdiction to entertain the revision, then the position would have been different, but in the present case, the statutory forum has the necessary legislative mandate to examine the issue of alleged non-compliance.”

A commercial plot at Shraddhapuri Awasiya Yojna, Phase 2, Meerut was allotted to the petitioner by the Meerut Development Authority in 2006. The petitioner fell into arrears over the instalments of the premium, and the allotment was cancelled on 19.06.2013 with forfeiture of the entire amount deposited. Challenges to the cancellation and the forfeiture, and later to the refusal of a refund, failed before the High Court and the Supreme Court.

The petitioner then pressed the distinct question of restoration of the plot under clause 13 of the scheme brochure through successive revisions before the State Government under section 41(3) of the Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973, four times getting the orders of the Authority set aside and the matter remanded, only for its representation to be rejected afresh each time.

By order dated 23.03.2026 the Revisional Authority directed the Authority to recalculate the dues with interest and give the petitioner one final opportunity to pay. The Authority instead passed the order dated 23.05.2026 affirming its earlier orders and directing a fresh auction. The petitioner's revision against that order was, on its own application, concluded as “not pressed” on 30.06.2026, and the present writ petition followed.

The petitioner submitted that the Authority had refused to obey a revisional order which was never challenged and had become final. It held that judicial discipline bound a quasi-judicial authority to the directions of the superior authority.

The Authority argued that withdrawal of the revision as “not pressed” attracted the Rule of Public Policy and rendered the petition not maintainable.

Taking up maintainability at the admission stage, the Court observed that the revision under section 41(3) was a statutory remedy in which the jurisdiction of the State Government was not limited, and that the petitioner had never contended that the revisional Authority could not have set the order aside once again.

“We see no reason as to why the petitioner would not have succeeded in getting the order set aside a fifth time if the revision had been allowed to run its course. What the order could have been can only be speculated about and is certainly not the subject matter of the present dispute. But by withdrawing the revision as “not pressed” a completely new set of circumstances have arisen which do not favour the petitioner.”

Had the petitioner come to the High Court without resorting to the statutory forum at all, the Court said, entertaining the petition would have been a matter of discretion under Article 226. Having instead challenged the order dated 23.05.2026 in the revision and then abandoned it, the petitioner had waived that challenge, it held.

The writ petition was accordingly dismissed as not maintainable, the petitioner being left free to pursue its remedy before the appropriate forum in accordance with law.