Before filing of Petition,verification of Identity & residential address must;Aadhar Card/Passport/ Identity document necessary:P&H HC

Read Order: Anil Kumar v. State of Haryana and others

Tulip Kanth

Chandigarh, October 25, 2021: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has recently directed that identity of the petitioner/s and their residential address should be verified prior to filing of any matter by mentioning the Aadhar Card number or Passport number etc., which are considered to be the authentic documents to establish the identity of an individual, alongwith contact number and address should be clearly mentioned in the petition and verified by the counsel before filing of the petition.

The Division Bench of Justice Ravi Shanker Jha and Justice Arun Palli passed these directions in a petition which was filed by the counsel without verifying or making sure about the identity of the petitioner or his true antecedents.

In this petition, noticing certain peculiar facts regarding the identity of the petitioner-Anil Kumar son of Dharam Pal and non-existence of the petitioner-Bajinder Singh son of Raje Ram in the previous petition, this Court by an order dated March 12,2021 required the counsel for the petitioner to produce the petitioners.

Later, the counsel informed that previous petition in question was filed on the instructions of one Sukhvir Singh Lather, who disclosed that one Bajinder Singh, son of Raje Ram, resident of village Kosali, District Jhajjar wanted to file a public interest litigation.

Notices were issued to Sukhvir Singh Lather and upon being served, he furnished an affidavit and affirmed that he was working on contractual basis in the office of Chief Engineer, BWS, Irrigation & W.R. Department, Haryana, Panchkula and several persons who had issues with the department would seek his legal advice for filing petitions. He would also refer them to the advocates. Likewise one Bajinder Singh,son of Raje Ram, had approached him and he had referred him to the counsel, who was appearing for the petitioner-Anil Kumar, even in the present petition. Thus, he had nothing more to do in the matter.

Being dissatisfied with the affidavit, dated September 13,2021, filed by Sukhvir Singh Lather and the matter being extremely sensitive, the Court had clearly expressed to the counsel appearing for him and shared the options the Court was left with to get to the root of the matter.

The Division Bench opined that from a bare perusal of the subsequent affidavit, it was apparent that Sukhvir Singh Lather never met any person by the name Bajinder Singh. Obviously, there was no occasion to introduce any such person to Mr. Jasminder Singh Thind, counsel for the petitioner either. He had admitted that there was no such person as Bajinder Singh who was stated to have filed the previous petition in question.

He had also stated in his affidavit that in fact he himself posed as Bajinder Singh and got the previous petition filed by signing all the documents as Bajinder Singh. And this fact was neither known to Mr. Jasminder Singh Thind, nor to Mr. Balsher Singh, who were the counsel even in the earlier writ petition. He admitted that he had made a grave mistake and for which he tendered an unconditional apology.

According to the Division Bench it was apparent that the earlier petition was filed by one Bajinder Singh who never existed and orders were obtained from this Court in the name of a fictitious person. Concededly, the said petition was filed by Sukhvir Singh Lather posing himself to be Bajinder Singh.

However, none of the parties or Sukhvir Singh Lather had made any allegation against the present petitioner-Anil Kumar. But evidently he was negligent, for he signed the second petition, which was verbatim the same as the first, as if he was the petitioner even in the first petition and not Bajinder Singh. Undoubtedly, the petition was filed by the  counsel without verifying or making sure about the identity of the petitioner or his true antecedents,noted the Bench.

However, as the counsel appearing for Sukhvir Singh Lather had tendered an unconditional apology on his behalf and stated that this act was committed in a state of overzealousness without deriving any personal benefit or gain, the unconditional apology tendered by him was accepted and the Bench warned him to be careful in future.