1 2025:CGHC:28894-DB NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR WPPIL No. 60 of 2025 Hemlal Chandrakar S/o Late Shri Jhumuk Lal Chandrakar Aged About 65 Years R/o Village - Tarra, Post - Tarra, Tahsil - Patan, District - Durg (C.G.) ... Petitioner(s) versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary, Home (Police) Department, Atal Nagar,mantralaya, New Raipur (C.G.) 2 - The Collector Durg, District - Durg (C.G.) 3 - The Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) Patan, District - Durg (C.G.) 4 - The Sub-Divisional Officer (Police) Patan, District - Durg (C.G.) 5 - The Station House Officer Police Station - Amleshwar, District - Durg (C.G.) 6 - Naresh Damohe S/o Gangaram Damohe Aged About 35 Years Director Of Sanchay Developers And Promotors Private Limited, R/o D- 12, Anupam Nagar, Near Ganesh Mandir, Raipur, District - Raipur (C.G.) ... Respondent(s) For Petitioner(s) : Mr. P. Chetan Kumar, Advocate For Respondent(s) : Mr. Y.S. Thakur, Add. A.G. Hon'ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Hon'ble Shri Bibhu Datta Guru , Judge Order on Board MANPREET KAUR Digitally signed by MANPREET KAUR Date: 2025.07.01 10:27:42 +0530 2 Per Ramesh Sinha , Chief Justice 30.06 .2025 1. Heard Mr. P. Chetan Kumar, learned counsel for petitioners as well as Mr. Y.S. Thakur, learned Additional Advocate General, appearing for the State/respondent Nos. 1 to 5. 2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that he has already deposited the security amount, receipt of which is attached with the present petition. 3. The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioners styled as public interest litigation with the following prayers: “10.1 That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue an appropriate writ, thereby directing the respondents No. 4 & 5 to comply with the memo dated 26.06.2024 issued by the respondent No. 3 (Annexure P/6). 10.2 That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to direct the respondent No. 2 to take proper action against the respondent No. 6 for doing illegal plotting of agricultural land, forthwith. 10.3 To kindly grant any other relief which may be deem fit in the given facts and circumstances of the instant case” 4. Brief facts of the case are that the land bearing khasra No. 856/1 total admeasuring area 2.44 acres situated at Village- Motipur, R.I.C. Amleshwar, Tahsil-Patan, District-Durg (C.G.) was recorded in the name of petitioner in revenue records. Vide registered sale 3 deed dated 20.07.2018, the respondent No. 6 purchased a piece of land bearing khasra No. 856/1 admeasuring area 0.23 hectare (57 Dismil) out of total area 3.12 acres. Though the respondent No. 6 has purchased the piece of aforesaid land, but the respondent No. 6 has not paid the consideration amount to the petitioner and obtained the aforesaid land by way of cheating and fraud. The seller of the land filed an application under Section 156(3) of Cr.P.C. before the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Patan, District-Durg and vide memo dated 31.05.2024 the learned trial Court directed the concerned Police Station, Amleshwar for registration of FIR against the culprits. In pursuant to the order of the trial Court, the offence under Sections 420, 34 of IPC has been registered in Crime No. 109/2024 at Police Station, Amleshwar against the culprits including respondent No. 6 on 29.06.2024, but till date the Police Station, Amleshwar has not submitted final report before the concerned Court, thereby providing shelter to the accused persons. On the basis of above sale deed, the aforesaid land was recorded as khasra No. 856/3 in the name of respondent No. 6 in revenue records. After mutation of aforesaid land, the respondent No. 6 has sold out the said land in pieces in favour of different persons. 5. The aforesaid land is agricultural land and without diversion of said land, the respondent No. 6 has sold out the said land in pieces for the purposes of plotting and further the respondent No. 6 has sold the excess land from its actual area. The land bearing 4 khasra No. 856/3 is bearing area 0.23 hectare, whereas the respondent No. 6 has sold out total 0.48 hectare land to different persons. The respondent No. 6 has sold out the land bearing khasra No. 856/3 to the different persons by increasing the area from 0.23 hectare to 0.48 hectares, thereby 0.25 hectares excess land has been sold by way of illegal plotting. After knowledge of above illegal plotting, the petitioner has made detailed complaint before the respondent No. 2 and in turn, the enquiry has been conducted into the complaint. Accordingly, the respondent No. 3 has conducted detailed enquiry and found that though the land bearing khasra No. 856/3 is recorded in the name of respondent No. 6 and the respondent No. 6 has sold out the pieces of khasra No. 856/3 to different persons by increasing the area of khasra No. 856/3 from 0.23 hectare to 0.48 hectare, thereby 0.25 hectare excess land has been sold by respondent No. 6 to the different persons. Thereafter, vide memo dated 26.06.2024, the respondent No. 3 has directed the respondent No. 4 to proceed in the enquiry report and to take appropriate action on the report against the respondent No. 6 and submit compliance report, but till date the respondents No. 4 & 5 have not acted according to memo dated 26.06.2024. Despite of information and direction by the respondent No. 3, no action has been taken till today and in between the petitioner has made a detail reminder representation before the respondent No. 2 about the inaction and giving more liberty to the accused respondent No. 6 to commit more such 5 offences in the area. One of the customer namely Radhika Shrivas who purchase the plotting land from respondent No. 6 (Sanchay Developers and Promotors Private Limited) got to know about this that she has been cheated when the application for actual possessions/diversion of the land has been rejected by the concerned authority stating that no such land is present their of which, she has made transaction with respondent No. 6. 6. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the inaction on the part of respondents No. 4 & 5 in not complying with the memo dated 26.06.2024 issued by the respondent No. 3 is bad in the eyes of law. The land bearing khasra No. 856/3 is agricultural land and without diversion of said land, the respondent No. 6 has sold out the said land into pieces for the purposes of plotting and further the respondent No. 6 has sold the excess land from its actual area. The land bearing khasra No. 856/3 is bearing area 0.23 hectare, whereas the respondent No. 6 has sold out total 0.48 hectare land to different persons. The respondent No. 6 has sold out the land bearing khasra No. 856/3 to the different persons by increasing the area from 0.23 hectare to 0.48 hectares, thereby 0.25 hectares excess land has been sold by way of illegal plotting. Further, after knowledge of above illegal plotting, the petitioner has made detailed complaint before the respondent No. 2 and in turn, the respondent No. 2 directed the respondent No. 3 to conduct enquiry into the complaint of petitioner. The respondent No. 3 has conducted detailed enquiry 6 and found that though the land bearing khasra No. 856/3 is recorded in the name of respondent No. 6 and the respondent No. 6 has sold out the pieces of khasra No. 856/3 to different persons by increasing the area of khasra No. 856/3 from 0.23 hectare to 0.48 hectare, thereby 0.25 hectare excess land has been sold by respondent No. 6 to the different persons. Vide memo dated 26.06.2024, the respondent No. 3 has directed the respondent No. 4 to proceed in the enquiry report and to take appropriate action on the report against the respondent No. 6 and submit compliance report. 7. On the other hand, learned State counsel submits that the issue involved in the present petition is purely civil in nature and there is no element of public interest involved in this case. The facts of the present case itself goes to show that the petitioner sold the land to the respondent No.6 and because the respondent No.6 has not paid the full consideration amount, hence the petitioner in disguise of public interest litigation has filed this petition with his person motive. Also, so far as the case of the petitioner is concerned, he has an alternative remedy to approach before the Collector for his grievance, however, the issue involved in the present matter does is should not be dealt by this Court in the form of Public Interest Litigation and hence, the present petition is liable to be dismissed. 8. From perusal of the materials available on record, it transpires that the issue involved in this petition is a purely civil dispute and 7 there is no element of public interest involved rather, the petitioner appears to be interested party having personal interest. It is the own say of the petitioner that he had sold a piece of land to the respondent No. 6 for which the petitioner did not receive any consideration and in respect of which he had also filed an application under Section 156(3) of the Cr.P.C. before the Magistrate wherein the learned Magistrate had directed for registration of the FIR against the culprits. The offence has already been registered but the grievance of the petitioner is that till date, no final report has been submitted. Further, if the petitioner has any grievance, he has remedy of taking recourse to law before the appropriate forum. The attempt of the petitioner is to get the relief which is not the subject matter of public interest. It is purely a dispute between two parties and the petitioner has remedy of taking recourse to competent jurisdictional civil / criminal court. 9. The Courts cannot allow its process to be abused for oblique purposes, as was observed by the Supreme Court Court in Ashok Kumar Pandey v. State of West Bengal, reported in (2004) 3 SCC 349. In Balwant Singh Chaufal (supra) the Hon’ble Supreme Court had discussed the three stages of a PIL which has been discussed above. The Supreme Court, in Balwant Singh Chaufal (supra) states as to how this important jurisdiction, i.e., PIL has been abused at Para 143 by observing as under: 10. “143. Unfortunately, of late, it has been noticed that such an important jurisdiction which has been 8 carefully carved out, created and nurtured with great care and caution by the courts, is being blatantly abused by filing some petitions with oblique motives. We think time has come when genuine and bona fide public interest litigation must be encouraged whereas frivolous public interest litigation should be discouraged. In our considered opinion, we have to protect and preserve this important jurisdiction in the larger interest of the people of this country but we must take effective steps to prevent and cure its abuse on the basis of monetary and non-monetary directions by the courts.” 11. 12. The Supreme Court, in Holicow Pictures (P) Ltd. v. Prem Chand Mishra, reported in (2007) 14 SCC 281 which has relied Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdhary, reported in (1992) 4 SCC 305, observed as under: 13. “12. It is depressing to note that on account of such trumpery proceedings initiated before the courts, innumerable days are wasted, which time otherwise could have been spent for the disposal of cases of the genuine litigants. Though we spare no efforts in fostering and developing the laudable concept of PIL and extending our long arm of sympathy to the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed and the needy whose fundamental rights are infringed and violated and whose grievances go unnoticed, unrepresented and unheard; yet we cannot avoid but express our opinion that while genuine litigants with legitimate grievances relating to civil matters involving properties worth hundreds of millions of rupees and criminal cases in which persons sentenced to death facing gallows under untold agony and persons sentenced to life imprisonment and kept in incarceration for long years, persons suffering from undue delay in service matters—government or private, persons awaiting the disposal of cases wherein huge amounts of public revenue or unauthorised collection of tax amounts are locked up, detenu expecting their release from the detention orders, etc. etc. are all standing in a long serpentine queue for years with the fond hope of getting into the courts and having their grievances redressed, the busybodies, meddlesome interlopers, wayfarers or officious interveners having absolutely no public interest except for personal gain or private profit either of 9 themselves or as a proxy of others or for any other extraneous motivation or for glare of publicity, break the queue muffing their faces by wearing the mask of public interest litigation and get into the courts by filing vexatious and frivolous petitions and thus criminally waste the valuable time of the courts and as a result of which the queue standing outside the doors of the courts never moves, which piquant situation creates frustration in the minds of the genuine litigants and resultantly they lose faith in the administration of our judicial system.” 14. 15. The Hon’ble Supreme Court, in Gurpal Singh v. State of Punjab & Others reported in (2005) 5 SCC 136, the appointment of the appellant as Auction Recorder was challenged. The Court held that the scope of entertaining a petition styled as a public interest litigation and locus standi of the petitioner particularly in matters involving service of an employee has been examined by this Court in various cases. The Court observed that before entertaining the petition, the Court must be satisfied about (a) the credentials of the applicant; (b) the prima facie correctness or nature of information given by him; (c) the information being not vague and indefinite. The information should show gravity and seriousness involved. The court has to strike balance between two conflicting interests; (i) nobody should be allowed to indulge in wild and reckless allegations besmirching the character of others; and (ii) avoidance of public mischief and to avoid mischievous petitions seeking to assail, for oblique motives, justifiable executive actions. 16. In the present case, we are not satisfied that this is a genuine petition filed in public interest so as to invoke the jurisdiction in the public interest under Article 226 of the Constitution. Even otherwise, the petitioner has alternative efficacious remedy for redressal of his 10 grievance as raised in this petition before the appropriate forum, and as such, the instant PIL is, accordingly, dismissed. The security amount deposited by the petitioner stands forfeited. Sd/- Sd/- (Bibhu Datta Guru) (Ramesh Sinha) Judge Chief Justice Manpreet