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'Just Because Delhi HC Is A Stone's Throw Away?' : Supreme Court Disapproves SLP Filed Against Adjournment
Mehal Jain
4 Jan 2022 8:50 AM GMT
The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised an attempt to approach it against orders of adjournment of the Delhi High Court as taking undue advantage of the proximity of the High Court."Just because the Delhi High Court is a stone's throw away, you can come to the Supreme Court against orders of adjournment?", said Justice D. Y. Chandrachud to the advocate for the SLP petitioner."What should...
The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised an attempt to approach it against orders of adjournment of the Delhi High Court as taking undue advantage of the proximity of the High Court.
"Just because the Delhi High Court is a stone's throw away, you can come to the Supreme Court against orders of adjournment?", said Justice D. Y. Chandrachud to the advocate for the SLP petitioner.
"What should happen in Maharashtra, Manipur etc?", asked the judge.
When the advocate persisted, urging that the petitioners are "very poor people", Justice Chandrachud remarked, "There are poor in other parts of the country also! An SLP against adjournment? We will not entertain this!"
The bench of Justices Chandrachud and A. S. Bopanna was hearing SLPs against the July, 2021 order of the Delhi High Court Division Bench listing in August, 2021 LPAs against a May, 2020 decision of the Single Judge; the order passed in August, 2021 by the Division Bench posting the matter for hearing in October, 2021; the order passed in October, 2021 listing the LPAs in November, 2021; and the order passed in November, 2021 posting the LPAs for January 28.
The LPAs are against the May, 2020 decision of the Delhi High Court Single Judge in a set of petitions challenging the orders passed by the Appellate Authority, Department of Food Supplies and Consumer Affairs, dismissing the appeals filed by the petitioner(s) and upholding the decision of the respondent [ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF FOOD AND SUPPLY, GOVERNMENT OF NCT OF DELHI] cancelling the authorisation of the Fair Price Shop(s) of the petitioner(s).
In dismissing the writ petitions, the Single Judge had held, "...the respondent has been able to establish that 90 Card Holders did not belong to the area allocated to the petitioner. Though it may be accepted that portability was allowed where FPS were connected to ePOS, the fact that these Card Holders were not attached to the petitioner and had not taken the food grains from the petitioner in the month of January and February, 2018, should have raised suspicion in the mind of the petitioner regarding their authenticity. Coupled with this fact is the assertion of the respondent, which is not denied by the petitioner, that these 90 Card Holders were in fact, not even residing at the given address. Here again, though it may be true that the petitioner was not directly responsible for carrying out the verification for all such Card Holders, this fact would be an important link in the totality of the circumstances alleged against the petitioner. It is further important to bear in mind that 88 out of these 90 Card Holders were given ration by the petitioner only through the OTP method. Though, the petitioner alleges that there was a flaw in the BEL device application, the fact that this happened to such a large extent only in cases where the Card Holders were not attached to the petitioner, again becomes an important consideration. Admittedly, the petitioner had given ration in 460 transactions through Bio-Metric method and another 35 through IRIS method; OTP method was used only in 114 transactions out of which 90 were for persons who were not attached to the petitioner and were not found residing at the given address. The fact that 44 out of these 90 Card Holders were given ration by the petitioner at odd hours is also an important circumstance. The fact that other FPS Licencees were also distributing ration at odd hours and non-working days does not exempt the petitioner to adequately explain how and why these 44 Card Holders were given ration at odd hours. Be that as it may, as observed hereinabove, it is not for this Court to re-appreciate the evidence considered by the Appellate Authority in reaching its conclusion that these transactions were not genuine. This Court is only confined to scrutinise if this is a case of 'no evidence'. I am afraid that the petitioner has not been able to make out such a case. Further, as held by the Supreme Court, in a case such as present, the respondent is not to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt but only on preponderance of probabilities of evidence. In case of circumstantial evidence, even though the petitioner is able to explain individually one or the other circumstance alleged against him, circumstances taken collectively, does not make it to be a case of 'no evidence'".
Case Title: M/S Prithvi Singh v. Assistant Commissioner (South), Department Of Food and Supply
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