High Court imposes costs of ₹50,000 on a litigant for arguing parallelly along with his counsel

Madras High Court imposes ₹50,000 costs on litigant for arguing parallelly and filing private interest litigation as public interest.

The Madras High Court has imposed costs of ₹50,000 on a litigant for arguing his case parallelly despite having engaged a counsel to represent him before the court and also for having instituted a private interest litigation in the guise of public interest.

First Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice D. Krishnakumar and Justice P.B. Balaji dismissed the case filed by Kannan Swaminathan after not finding any public interest element and directed him to pay the costs to Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority.

In his affidavit, the petitioner had identified himself as a civil engineer with 20 years of international and national experience in water supply and sewerage projects. He had alleged irregularities in a tender floated by Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board.

The petitioner had claimed the tender process had not been conducted in a transparent manner and as per the Jal Jeevan Mission guidelines issued by the Centre. He insisted on a court monitored probe into the alleged irregularities by a special investigation team.

On the other hand, the TWAD Board filed a counter affidavit stating the petitioner was the brother of TWAD board registered contractor Ganapathy Swaminathan who became ineligible to participate in the tender in question, but these facts had not been disclosed by the litigant.

The Board accused the litigant of having suppressed crucial facts before the court and claimed there was absolutely no public interest involved in the case since the tender had been floated transparently. The judges took note that the petitioner did not file a reply or rejoinder refuting the Board’s averments.

Therefore, they concluded the petitioner had filed the case in the guise of public interest though he was actually aggrieved against non award of the tender to his brother.