New Delhi, Jun 16 The Supreme Court on Monday permitted the Samajwadi Party to petition the Allahabad High Court over the cancellation of its office allotment in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit.
A bench of Justices Sandeep Mehta and Prasanna B. Varale was hearing a special leave petition (SLP) by the Samajwadi Party against a decision of the Allahabad High Court which had dismissed the writ petition filed in individual capacity by then Pilibhit district President of the party and had ordered that no liberty would be given to file a fresh plea on the same cause of action.
In its order, the Justice Mehta-headed Bench opined that the impugned order of the Allahabad HC should not prejudice the rights of the Samajwadi Party.
The SLP filed before the apex court said that the then district President did not act on behalf of the party, nor did he have any instructions from the party, but had filed the proceedings in his own name.
It added that the Samajwadi Party intends to approach the Allahabad HC against "ill-conceived, abrupt and illegal decisions" of the Pilibhit Nagar Palika Parishad, but cannot do so as the impugned decision prevents it from filing a fresh plea on allotment cancellation.
Since the party did not have any office in Pilibhit, as per the SLP, it was allotted the premises in question in 2020, and subsequently, a Letter of Possession was also issued by the Pilibhit Nagar Palika Parishad. However, the Executive Officer, in an order passed in 2020, recorded that due procedure was not followed in allotment of the property and several procedures were circumvented, such as a public auction was not done and the rent agreement was not registered.
"The officials of Nagar Palika Parishad, Pilibhit as well as the Executive Officer, Nagar Palika Parishad, Pilibhit had neither given an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner nor have they considered the facts or the law relevant in this case, before passing the Order,” contended the SLP, adding that the party had been religiously paying the annual rent and has remitted rent payment till January 2021.
It said that since allotment cancellation proceedings were not under the Public Premises Act, the order of the Executive Officer is without jurisdiction because the allotment was done by the board of Pilibhit Nagar Palika Parishad.
"That acting under political pressure, the Executive Officer of the Municipal Council, Pilibhit along with his subordinates and associates, had been illegally interfering with the peaceful working of the office of the petitioner and had made innumerable attempts to forcibly shut down the Samajwadi Party office in the district," contended the SP's SLP.
Senior advocate Siddarth Dave, assisted by advocates Anuroop Chakravarty and Vishnu Sankar, represented the Samajwadi Party before the apex court.
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