Within Govt’s Exclusive Domain To Use Spelling Of ‘Cuttack’ As ‘Katak’: Orissa High Court Imposes ₹10k Cost On PIL Petitioner
The petitioner had approached the Orissa High Court with a PIL seeking a change in the spelling of the City of Cuttack to ‘Katak’.
The Orissa High Court has imposed a cost of ₹ 10,000 on a litigant for approaching the Court after frequent rejection of the public interest litigation filed by him. The High Court held that once a litigation of such nature had already been dismissed with a categorical finding that it is within the exclusive domain of the Government whether to describe the spelling of ‘Cuttack’ as ‘Katak’, the PIL on the self-same cause would not be maintainable.
The petitioner had approached the High Court with a PIL seeking a change in the spelling of the City of Cuttack as ‘Katak’ instead of ‘Cuttack’.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice M.S. Raman stated, “A litigant cannot be permitted to approach the Court raising the same issue (s) and/or concern which has already been decided by the Court unless it invites a recognized right within the parameters of the Constitution. Once a litigation of such nature has already been dismissed with categorical finding that it is within the exclusive domain of the Government whether to describe the spelling of “Cuttack” as “Katak”, the present Public Interest Litigation on the self-same cause is not maintainable.It is one of such examples of publicity interest litigation than having a serious concern over the interest of public. The Court must frown upon such fancy litigation which has a sinister motive of gaining the popularity without having any element of a public interest in it. Frequent rejection of the public interest litigation filed by the petitioner has not precluded him from approaching the Court again and again so that at one point of time there may be a change of opinion.”
Advocate Deba Narayan Pattnaik represented the Petitioner while Addl. Government Advocate Debashis Tripathy represented the State of Odisha.
Factual Background
The matter emanates from a public notice whereby the Government had taken a conscious decision to correct the spellings of several places. The petitioner tried to convince the Court that the Government have ignored the spelling of the City of Cuttack, which ought to have been corrected. It was the petitioner’s case that “Cuttack” was spelt as “Katak” in many documents, including the certificate issued by the Education Department, the Universities and the Colleges having a great reputation in the country, and therefore, the Government could not ignore such an aspect. On such grounds, the petitioner sought restoration of the spelling.
The petitioner had approached the Court for the identical reliefs on earlier two occasions, wherein the first writ petition ended with a direction to approach the Government flagging such issue in the form of a representation to be decided by the concerned Government whereas the second writ petition received dismissal at the threshold as it did not involve any public element.
Reasoning
The Bench, at the outset, explained that it is within the domain of the Government to take a conscious decision to write the name of a place, and in the event the Government thinks that the place has been wrongly spelt, the decision may be taken in that regard, which has been taken in relation to several places enumerated within such public notice. The Court should not extend its powers enshrined under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in dealing with all such cases which is within the exclusive domain of the Government nor the Court should use the power conferred upon the Executives/Bureaucrats taking shelter under the aforesaid provision, it mentioned.
“The separation of powers is not only real but also be realized when litigation in the nature of public interest is filed before the Court. Precisely such concept has been reiterated in a preceding public interest litigation filed by the petitioner which was dismissed on such score”, it added.
The Bench was of the view that once a litigation of such nature had already been dismissed with a finding that it is within the exclusive domain of the Government whether to describe the spelling, the Public Interest Litigation on the self-same cause would not be maintainable. The Bench found no ground to entertain such a public interest litigation, more particularly, when an earlier round of litigation could not yield any fruitful result. “We concur with the views expressed by the Court in the earlier writ petition and do not find any element of taking any different decision”, the order read.
The Bench thus dismissed the writ petition with a cost of Rs 10,000 to be deposited by the petitioner before the Member Secretary, Odisha State Legal Services Authority, Juvenile Justice Fund, Cuttack, within two weeks. “In the event of such deposit, the Odisha State Legal Services Authority shall utilize the said amount for the welfare of the children in need of care and protection. In default, it is open for the Odisha State Legal Services Authority to recover the said amount as permissible in law”, it further ordered.
Cause Title: Srujeet Khuntia v. State of Odisha and others (Case No.: W.P.(C) PIL No.6181 of 2026)