The Madhya Pradesh High Court imposed a Cost of Rs.5,000/- on the Petitioner and dismissed a Petition seeking direction to the respondents to act upon the representation/notice of the petitioners and on the letter issued by the Respondent Authority thereby may please be directed to process and complete the Denotification process in a time-bound manner.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Vishal Mishra noted that on a specific question being asked as to how a mandamus could lie within just a short period of four weeks after filing of the representation, no answer is forthcoming except to the fact that the land was taken long back.
In spite of the request being made, the High Court did not find any reason as to how this petition could be entertained. Irrespective of the contentions being made, the representation has been given only on 23.01.2023 and the respondent – authority after receiving the representation issued a letter dated 07.02.2023 addressing the Land Acquisition Officer for further action.
The Bench failed to understand as to how a petition could be filed within a short period of four weeks from the date of issuance of the said letter. Some amount of reasonable time is required to be granted. However, counsel for petitioners insists that the petition be considered.
Under these circumstances, the Court found no ground to entertain the petition. The communication is dated 07.02.2023.
“Reasonable time should be granted for the respondents to react. In case they fail to react, the petitioners have always liberty to move this Court. But to move this Court within such a short period of time is nothing but an abuse of the process of the Court”, the Court said.