Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 7: High Court today said that a litigant cannot be allowed to pick and choose or hide and seek the facts.
The Division Bench of Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice M A Chowdhary said that the litigant cannot be allowed to play ‘hide and seek’ or to ‘pick and choose’ the facts he or she likes to disclose and to suppress or conceal other facts and suppression of concealment of material facts is not an advocacy as it is a jugglery, manipulation, maneuvering or misrepresentation, which has no place in equitable and prerogative jurisdiction.
These observation were passed by the Division Bench while hearing an appeal filed by the respondent-State through Sr AAG Mohsin Qadri challenging the judgment passed by the Single Bench providing therein that the writ petitioner-working as constable in J&K Police would be deemed to be continuing in service, further directing the appellant-state to allow her to resume her duty forthwith and to pass orders for release of some monetary benefits in her favour for the period she remained out of service.
It is alleged by the appellant-State that the impugned judgment has been passed without considering and appreciating the material as such, and seeks setting aside the same on the ground of concealment of material facts.
Advocate Qadri while placing the factual position of the case before the bench by advancing his arguments submitted that the aggrieved constable, before the writ court as petitioner, had not approached the court with clean hands and had resorted to misrepresentation of facts, resulting in passing of the impugned order.
“A writ remedy is an equitable one. While exercising extraordinary power, a writ court certainly bears in mind the conduct of the party, who invokes the jurisdiction of the court. Litigant before the writ court must come with clean hands, clean heart, clean mind and clean objective”, DB recorded.
If a litigant, court said, does not disclose all the material facts fairly and truly or states them in a distorted manner and misleads the court, the court has inherent power to refuse to proceed further with the examination of the case on merits. If the Court does not reject the petition on that ground, the court would be failing in its duty.
“There is a compelling need to take a serious view in such matters to ensure purity and grace in the administration of justice. Having regard to the law laid down and reverting to the facts and circumstances of the case, the finding recorded in the Review Petition, impugned in this Appeal, is not sustainable, due to conduct of the respondent-constable. The present Appeal, is, thus, allowed and the impugned judgment is set aside”, DB concluded.
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