@JUDGMENTTAG-ORDER
Satish K. Agnihotri, J.@mdashHeard learned Counsel for the parties.
2. By this petition, the petitioner seeks a writ of quo warranto declaring the respondent No. 3 to hold the office of Chairman, Chhattisgarh Rajya Beej Evam Krishi Vikas Nigam Limited (for short "the respondent No. 2/Corporation") as null and void being contrary to the provisions of Article 319 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner also prays for quashment of the appointment letter dated 5- 2-2007 (Annexure - P/1-B) whereby the respondent No. 3 was appointed as Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation.
3. The indisputable facts, in nutshell, as projected by the petitioner, are that the respondent No. 3 was a member of the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission (for short "the PSC") from 25-10-2004 to 9-1-2006. The respondent No. 3 tendered his resignation from the post of Member, PSC by his letter dated 10-1-2006. Thereafter, the respondent No. 3 was appointed as Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation by order dated 5-2-2007 (Annexure - P/1-B) by the State Government in exercise of its power under Article 74 (a) of the Memorandum & Articles of Association of the respondent No. 2/Corporation. Thus, this petition for a writ of quo warranto.
4. During pendency of the writ petition, the respondent No. 3 tendered his resignation by letter dated 22-12-2008 from the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation. After resignation of the respondent No. 3 from the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation, one Shri Sergius Minj, Additional Chief Secretary and Agricultural Production Commissioner, Chhattisgarh, was appointed as Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation on 5-2-2009.
5. Now the question arises for consideration asto whether on tendering resignation by the respondent No. 3 from the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation, this writ petition seeking a writ of quo warranto against the respondent No. 3, who was holding the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation has become academic.
6. On 13-4-2009 this Court has framed issues; firstly; whether the petition has become academic, in view of the fact that the respondent No. 3 has tendered resignation ? and secondly; whether the decisions taken and orders passed by the respondent No. 3 are vitiated ?
7. As far as question No. 2 is concerned, it was urged by learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner that this question may be required to be adjudicated upon if the case is heard on merits and a writ of quo warranto against the respondent No. 3 is granted. Even otherwise, there is no prayer for declaring all the orders passed by the respondent No. 3, as Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation as nullity or void ab initio. Thus, I am not considering this question at present.
8. With regard to first question asto whether the petition has become academic is concerned, Shri Kanak Tiwari, learned senior counsel appearing with Shri Varun Sharma, learned Counsel for the petitioner, would submit that the petitioner is seeking a writ of quo warranto not against the respondent No. 3 alone but against the State Government, as under what authority the State Government has appointed the respondent No. 3 on the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation when there is a clear prohibition under Article 319 of the Constitution of India for a member of the PSC to hold any office either under the Government of India or under the Government of a State.
9. Shri Prashant Mishra, learned Advocate General appearing for the State/respondent No. 1, per contra, would submit that the relief sought for in the present writ petition does not survive after tendering resignation by the respondent No. 3 from the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation and, as such, a writ of quo warranto cannot be issued and the matter has become academic. In support of his contention Shri Mishra, placed reliance upon the decisions of the Hon''ble Supreme Court rendered in Govt. of National Capital Territory, Delhi v. Inder Pal Singh Chadha and Ors., Kusum Ingots & Allots Ltd. v. Union of India and Anr., High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan v. Ramesh Chand Paliwal and Anr. and S.P. Gupta and Ors. v. President of India and Ors.
10. Ms Pinky Anand, learned senior counsel with Shri A.S. Kachhawaha and Shri Balendu Shekhar, learned Counsel appearing for the respondent No. 2 and Shri B.P. Sharma with Shri K. Sharma, learned Counsel appearing for the respondent No. 3 make similar submission that the question raised in the instant writ petition has become academic. The respondent No. 3 has tendered his resignation from the post of Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation. At present, he is not the holder of any post under the Government of India or the State Government.
11. A writ of quo warranto may be issued against the person holding the office not against the authority who has passed the order. In The University of Mysore v. C.D. Govinda Rao and Anr., the Hon''ble Supreme Court observed as under:
7. ...Broadly stated, the quo warranto proceeding affords judicial enquiry in which any person holding an independent susbtantative public office, or franchise, or liberty, is called upon to show by what right he holds the said office, franchise or liberty; if the enquiry leads to the finding that the holder of the office as no valid title to it, the issue of the writ of quo warranto ousts him from that office. In other words, the procedure of quo warranto confers jurisdiction and authority on the judiciary to control executive action in the matter of making appointment to public offices against the relevant statutory provisions; it also protects a citizen from being deprived of public office to which he may have a right. It would thus be seen that if these proceedings are adopted subject to the conditions recognized in that behalf, they tend to protect the public from usurpers of public office; in some cases, persons not entitled to public office may be allowed to occupy them and to continue to hold them as a result of the connivance of the executive or with its active help, and in such cases, if the jurisdiction of the Courts to issue writ of quo warranto is properly invoked, the usurper can be ousted and the person entitled to the post allowed to occupy it. It is thus clear that before a citizen can claim a writ of quo warranto, he must satisfy the court, inter alia, that the office in question is a public office and is held by usurper without legal authority, and that necessarily leads to the enquiry as to whether the appointment of the said alleged usurper has been made in accordance with law or not.
12. In B.R. Kapur v. State of T.N. and Anr., Hon''ble Shri Justice Brijesh Kumar, as His Lordship, then, was, in his concurring judgment observed as under:
79. .A writ of quo warranto is a writ which lies against the person, who according to the relator is not entitled to hold an office of public nature and is only a usurper of the office. It is the person, against whom the writ of quo warranto is directed, who is required to show, by what authority that person is entitled to hold the office. The challenge can be made on various grounds, including on the grounds that the possessor of the office does not fulfil the required qualifications or suffers from any disqualification, which debars the person to hold such office. So as to have an idea about the nature of action in the proceedings for writ of quo warranto and its original form, as it used to be, it would be beneficial to quote from Words and Phrases, Permanent Edn., Vol. 35-A, p. 648. It reads as follows:
The original common law writ of quo warranto was a civil writ at the suit of the Crown, and not a criminal prosecution. It was in the nature of a writ of right by the King against one who usurped or claimed franchises or liabilities, to inquire by what right he claimed them. This writ, however, fell into disuse in England centuries ago, and its place was supplied by an information in the nature of a quo warranto, which in its origin was a criminal method of prosecution, as well as to punish the usurper by a fine for the usurpation of the franchise, as to oust him or seize it for the Crown. Long before our revolution, however, it lost its character as a criminal proceeding in everything except form, and was applied to the mere purposes of trying the civil right, seizing the franchise, or ousting the wrongful possessor, the fine being nominal only; and such, without any special legislation to that effect, has always been its character in many of the States of the Union, and it is therefore a civil remedy only. Ames v. State of Kansas, People v. Dashaway Assn.
Thus, a writ of quo warranto lies against the person, who is holding the office not against the Government, who has appointed the person.
13. In Minerva Mills Ltd. and Ors. v. Union of India and Ors., a Constitution Bench of the Hon''ble Supreme Court while holding that it is the settled practice of the Court not to decide academic questions overruled the preliminary objection on the ground that the constitutionality of Sections 4 and 55 of the 42nd amendment is not an academic or a hypothetical question observed as under:
39. ...In view of the importance of the question raised and in view of the fact that the question has been raised in many a petition, it is expedient in the interest of justice to settle the true position. Secondly, what we are dealing with is not an ordinary law which may or may not be passed so that it could be said that our jurisdiction is being invoked on the hypothetical consideration that a law may be passed in future which will injure the rights of the petitioners. We are dealing with a constitutional amendment which has between brought into operation and which, of its own force, permits the violation of certain freedoms through laws passed for certain purposes. We, therefore, overrule the preliminary objection and proceed to determine the point raised by the petitioners.
14. In Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Company v. Bharat Coking Coal Limited and Anr., another Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court while considering the preliminary objection observed as under:
11. ...We have serious reservations on the question whether it is open to a court to answer academic or hypothetical questions on such considerations, particularly so when serious constitutional issues are involved. We (Judges) are not authorized to make disembodied pronouncements on serious and cloudy issues of constitutional policy without battle lines being properly drawn. Judicial pronouncements cannot be immaculate legal conceptions. It is but right that no important point of law should be decided without a proper lis between parties properly ranged on either side and a crossing of the swords. We think it is inexpedient for the Supreme Court to delve into problems which do not arise and express opinion thereon.
15. The Hon''ble Supreme Court in State of Manipur and Ors. v. Chandam Manihar Singh observed as under
10. Having given our anxious consideration to the rival contentions, we find that as the High Court''s direction in favour of the respondent''s tenure which is to expire on 15-10-1999 has almost worked itself out and less than a month remains for him to act as Chairman of the Board, the first grievance raised by learned Senior Counsel for the appellants in connection with the removal of the respondent by order dated 19-10- 1998 has become of academic interest. We, therefore, did not permit learned Senior Counsel for the appellants to canvass this point any further before us. That takes us to the consideration of the second point.
16. In Arnit Das v. State of Bihar, the Supreme Court observed as under:
6. It is settled practice that this Court does not decide matters which are only of academic interest on the facts of a particular case. (See with advantage: Sanjeev Coke Mfg. Co. v. Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., R.S. Nayak v. A.R. Antulay and Dhartipakar Madan Lal Agarwal v. Rajiv Gandhi.)
17. A seven Judges Bench of the Hon''ble Supreme Court in S.P. Gupta (supra), observed as under:
56..The Court does not decide issues in the abstract. It undertakes determination of a controversy provided it is necessary in order to give relief to a party and if no relief can be given because none is sought, the court cannot take upon itself a theoretical exercise merely for the purpose of deciding academic issues, howsoever important they may be...
18. In Govt. of National Capital Territory, Delhi v. Inder Pal Singh Chadha (supra), the Hon''ble Supreme Court observed as under:
6. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the High Court need not have entered into and dwelt upon the questions which it did and as such, the expression of opinion by the High Court is unnecessary and uncalled for. Constitutional issues should not be decided unless that is necessary to do for the purpose of giving relief in a given case...
19. The Supreme Court in Kusum Ingots (supra) held that a writ Court would not determine a constitutional question in a vacuum.
20. In Dhartipakar Madan Lal Agarwal v. Rajiv Gandhi, the Supreme Court observed as under:
4. ...In this view grounds raised in the petition for setting aside the election of the respondent have been rendered academic. Court should not undertake to decide an issue unless it is a living issue between the parties. If an issue is purely academic in that its decision one way or the other would have no impact on the position of the parties, it would be waste of public time to engage itself in deciding it. Lord Viscount Simon in his speech in the House of Lords in Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada v. Jervis observed : I do not think that it would be a proper exercise of the authority which this House possesses to hear appeals if it occupies time in this case in deciding an academic question, the answer to which cannot affect the respondent in any way. It is an essential quality of an appeal fit to be disposed of by his House that there should exist between the parties to a matter in actual controversy which the House undertakes to decide as a living issue.
21. The Supreme Court in Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India and Ors. v. Cricket Association of Bengal and Ors., observed as under:
121. The orders passed by the High Court have to be viewed against the backdrop of the events and the position of law discussed above. The circumstances in which the High Court passed the orders and the factual and legal considerations which weighed with it in passing them speak for themselves. However, since the cricket matches have already been telecast, the question of the legality or otherwise of the orders has become academic and it is not necessary to pronounce our formal verdict on the same. Hence we refrain from doing so.
22. In Parkash Singh Badal and Anr. v. State of Punjab and Ors., the Supreme Court observed as under:
39. So far as the question about the non-application of mind in the sanction or absence of sanction is concerned, this has been answered in the first question i.e. where the public servant has ceased to be a public servant since he has ceased to hold the office where the alleged offence is supposed to have taken place, the other questions really become academic.
23. A common thread running through dicta laid down by the Hon''ble Supreme Court in a catena of decisions above cited is that the Court should not decide a question, which has become academic except in special cases depending upon the facts of case, like a constitutional amendment which has been brought into operation and permits the violation of certain freedoms through laws passed for certain purposes or other special facts depending on the issue involved in the case. In the present case, the issue does not involve any constitutional interpretation or any other special facts.
24. Applying the well settled principles of law to the facts of the case on hand, wherein a writ of quo warranto is sought against the respondent No. 3 for holding the office of the Chairman of the respondent No. 2/Corporation, this petition does not warrant consideration of any issue on merit. During pendency of the writ petition, the respondent No. 3 has tendered his resignation and, as such, no lis is available and no relief can be granted to the petitioner against the respondent No. 3 as on date. Thus, the question raised herein has become academic and as such, it would be a futile exercise to delve into merits of the case.
25. For the reasons mentioned hereinabove, this petition is liable to be and is hereby dismissed as having become academic and infructuous. No order asto costs.
