The Supreme Court has imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the appellants for deliberate nondisclosure of parallel proceedings before the National Green Tribunal and the High Court challenging the same NOC for a petrol pump retail outlet installation.

The appellants were aggrieved by the setting up of a petrol pump retail outlet on a plot of land situated on Bhopal to Berasia road.

The Division Bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said, “Access to justice is inextricably connected to maintaining integrity in the process of invocation and conduct of remedial proceedings before Courts and Tribunals. We have entertained these civil appeals after sufficient warning that, in the event we accept the objections of the respondent about the deliberate nondisclosure of parallel proceedings initiated before the High Court, and that the original application before the Tribunal is not bonafide as it is intended to subserve personal interest of appellant no. 3, conducting rival business, these civil appeals will be dismissed with exemplary costs. This approach is necessary to ensure earnest and bonafide actions before the tribunals for protecting environment and ecology.”

The Bench further held, “Appellants have suppressed the necessary facts and there is reason to believe that the proceedings before NGT were initiated to subserve business interest of appellant no. 3. In this view of the matter, the civil appeals are dismissed with costs quantified at Rs.50,000/- payable to the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association within four weeks from today.”

Senior Advocate V. Mohana represented the Appellant while Senior Advocate Pinaki Mishra represented the Respondents.

Factual Background

The three appellants approached the National Green Tribunal invoking Section 14 of the NGT Act to restrain respondents from setting up a Petrol Pump at a plot of land situated on SH 10, Bhopal to Berasia road. The appellants had specifically challenged the consent to operate issued by the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board, Bhopal, under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. The Appellants had also challenged the OC issued by the Collector, enabling installation of the petrol pump retail outlet as per the application made by the contesting respondents.

All the NOCs as well as the consent to operate, were issued before the filing of the original application before the NGT.By the impugned order, the NGT dismissed the original application. The appellants filed the civil appeals challenging the judgment of NGT. The appellants responded to the preliminary objections by filing their reply, where, for the first time, they brought to the notice of the Court the filing of a writ petition by the third appellant. The appellants sought to justify their action of not informing this Court about the filing of the subsequent writ petition by contending that the scope of proceedings arising out of the original application before the NGT, on the one hand, and proceedings arising out of the writ petition before the High Court were distinct.

Reasoning

The Bench held that it was not correct to say that the original application was confined only to “Siting Criteria of Retail Outlets”. As per the Bench, the specific ground in the civil appeals challenging the NOC on the ground that it was granted without obtaining the development permission from the town and country planning authority, which requirement arises under the M.P. Nagar Tatha Gram Nivesh Adhiniyam, 1973, the submission that the proceedings before NGT were confined only to “Siting Criteria of Retail Outlets” was false.

The Bench was of the view that the appellants had initiated identical and parallel proceedings. It was also discernible from the pleadings that there was an overlap and parallel challenges to the same NOC.“ Even assuming that the scope and ambit of challenge is distinct, which we have demonstrated that they are not, the appellants should have taken the permission of this Court for initiating the writ petition. The minimum that the appellants could have done and infact should have done is to inform this Court about initiation of the fresh proceeding challenging the NOC dated 07.02.2024 before the High Court, particularly when the civil appeals are pending consideration”, it said.

The Bench thus held that the appellants had suppressed the necessary facts, and there was reason to believe that the proceedings before NGT were initiated to subserve the business interest of the third appellant.

The Bench dismissed the appeals with costs quantified at Rs 50,000 payable to the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association. “We also clarify that we have not examined the issue relating to violation of M.P. Nagar Tatha Gram Nivesh Adhiniyam, 1973 raised in the writ petition pending before the High Court. Said writ petition will be heard and disposed of on its own merits and without being influenced by observations made by this Court in the present case”, it concluded.

Cause Title: Arun Kumar Sharma & Ors v. State of Madhya Pradesh & Ors (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 826)

Appearance

Appellant: Senior Advocate V. Mohana, AOR Abhijit Banerjee, Advocate Sreepriya K

Respondent: Senior Advocate Pinaki Mishra, Advocate Raghav Sharma, AOR Salvador Santosh Rebello, Advocates Jaskirat Pal Singh, Pranjal Pandey, Kritika, AOR Sarad Kumar Singhania, AOR K. R. Sasiprabhu, Advocates Vishnu Sharma A S, Namrata Saraogi, Vikas Sharma

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Justice Pamidighantam Sri NarasimhaJustice Joymalya Bagchi

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.