Mumbai: The Bombay High Court, in a strong stance against frivolous litigation, has imposed a Rs 5 lakh cost on a petitioner for filing a baseless writ petition in a land dispute related to Kolhapur Airport. The court highlighted the abuse of legal processes, calling it a growing trend that not only wastes judicial time but also obstructs the rights of legitimate claimants.
Criticising the rising trend of frivolous litigation, the bench said that “this is a new trend which we have noticed in several matters.” It emphasised that such practices not only waste judicial resources but also undermine the rights of legitimate claimants and the integrity of the judicial process.
“At the cost of wasting valuable time of the Court of more than 2.30 hours and at the cost of other litigants waiting for their turn, the petitioner consciously wasted the Court’s time on such proceedings. We cannot overlook that in the present times when the pressure on the Court is mounting, litigants persist to assert such frivolous pleas,” a bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Advait Sethna said on November 28.
The case revolved around land owned by Minakshi Balasao Magdum, a widow, and her family. GB Industries, a firm operating on the land under a leave and license agreement that expired in March 2020, sought compensation and claimed tenancy rights despite having no legal basis after the license’s expiration.
During the hearing in the petition, the firm’s counsel argued for nearly fifty minutes to try to establish a legal right to the land. The Court found these claims baseless, terming the petition an attempt to harass the landowners and delay their rightful compensation. The bench said that the petitioner had previously failed to obtain an injunction in a civil suit, which sought to establish a tenant-landlord relationship, despite the clear terms of the expired license agreement.
The judges, while imposing cost on petitioner, said that the abuse of legal processes by well-resourced litigants cannot be ignored. “Such untenable persistence of the litigant cannot be brushed aside lightly. The Court would certainly not countenance abuse of the process of law. The litigants who can afford to abuse the process of law on the strength of resources available to them to litigate, certainly would be an aspect which cannot be overlooked by the Court in dismissing such proceedings with exemplary costs,” the bench underlined.
The court has said that in case the petitioner fails to pay Rs5 lakh within two weeks, then the same shall be recovered as land revenue, with the firm’s assets and the personal properties of its partners potentially being attached.
