Union Of India vs State Of Punjab And Others on 15 December, 2009

       IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT

                             CHANDIGARH

                         CWP No. 11483 of 2009

                       Date of Decision: 15.12.2009

Union of India

                                                               ...Petitioner

                                  Versus

State of Punjab and others

                                                           ....Respondents

CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR

             HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASWANT SINGH

Present:    Mr. Puneet Jindal, Advocate,
            for the petitioner.

            Mr. Piyush Kant Jain, Addl. AG, Punjab,
            for the respondents.

1.    To be referred to the Reporter or not?

2.    Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?



M.M. KUMAR, J.

Challenge in this petition filed under Article 226 of the

Constitution is to the orders dated 4.12.1987 and 29.9.2008 (P-4 & P-8)

whereby the respondents have raised demand of Motor Vehicle Tax in

respect of the Vehicles owned by the Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala. A

further prayer has been made for restraining the respondents from levying,

charging or recovering any type of Motor Vehicle or Token Tax upon the

transport, passengers or other vehicles owned by various authorities of the

Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala. Still further a prayer has been made for

directing the respondents to refund the Motor Vehicle Tax already
CWP No. 11483 of 2009 2
recovered by them from the petitioner.

Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perusing the

paper book with their able assistance, it transpires that the dispute in the

instant petition is inter se between the petitioner and the respondents, which

are statutory bodies. There is no clearance on record from the High

Powered Officers’ Committee required to be set up for resolving such

dispute in pursuance of the directions issued by Hon’ble the Supreme Court

in the cases of Oil and Natural Gas Commission v. CCE, 1992 Supp. (2)

SCC 432 and Oil and Natural Gas Commission v. CCE, 1995 Supp. (4)

SCC 541. Hon’ble the Supreme Court has reminded that the dispute

between two public sector undertaking and State has to be cleared by High

Powered Officers’ Committee. The aforesaid principles were also reiterated

in a later judgment in the case of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. v.

Chairman, Central Board, Direct Taxes, (2004) 6 SCC 431. The basic

object of referring dispute to the High Powered Committee is to avoid

frivolous litigation and also to reach an amicable settlement. It further

prevents docket explosion to the already over burdened courts. Similar

observation has been made by Hon’ble the Supreme Court in Mahanagar

Telephone Nigam Ltd’s case (supra), which reads thus:

“Undoubtedly, the right to enforce a right in a court of law

cannot be effaced. However, it must be remembered that

courts are overburdened with a large number of cases. The

majority of such cases pertain to government departments

and/or public sector undertakings. As is stated in Chief

Conservator of Forests case it was not contemplated by the

framers of the Constitution or CPC that two departments of a
CWP No. 11483 of 2009 3
State or the Union of India and /or a department of the

Government and a public sector undertaking fight a litigation

in a court of law. Such a course is detrimental to public

interest as it entails avoidable wastage of public money and

time. These are all limbs of the Government and must act in

coordination and not confrontation. The mechanism set up

by this Court is not, as suggested by Mr. Andhyarujina, only

to conciliate between the government departments. It is also

set up for purposes of ensuring that frivolous disputes do not

come before courts without clearance from the High-

powered Committee. If it can, the High Powered Committee

will resolve the dispute. If the dispute is not resolved the

Committee would undoubtedly give clearance. However,

there could also be frivolous litigation proposed by a

department of the Government or a public sector

undertaking. This could be prevented by the High Powered

Committee. In such cases, there is no question of resolving

the dispute. The Committee only has to refuse permission to

litigate. No right of the department/public sector

undertaking is affected in such a case. The litigation being

of a frivolous nature must not be brought to court. To be

remembered that in almost all cases one or the other party

will not be happy with the decision of the High-Powered

Committee. The dissatisfied party will always claim that its

rights are affected, when in fact, no right is affected. The

Committee is constituted of highly placed officers of the
CWP No. 11483 of 2009 4
Government, who do not have an interest in the dispute, it is

thus expected that their decision will be fair and honest.

Even if the department/public sector undertaking finds the

decision unpalatable, discipline requires that they abide by it.

Otherwise the whole purpose of this exercise will be lost and

every party against whom the decision is given will claim

that they have been wronged and that their rights are

affected. This should not be allowed to be done.”

In view of the above, writ petition is disposed of with a

direction to the High Powered Committee of the Officers of the petitioner as

well as the respondent State to take cognizance of the dispute and resolve

the same as per directions of Hon’ble the Supreme Court in cases of Oil and

Natural Gas Commissioner’s case(supra) and Mahanagar Telephone

Nigam Ltd’s case (supra) within four months from the date of receipt of

certified copy of the order.

The writ petition stands disposed of in the above terms.

                                                    (M.M. KUMAR)
                                                       JUDGE




                                                  (JASWANT SINGH)
December 15, 2009                                      JUDGE

Pkapoor