Justice Dharam Veer Sharma, who will be retiring on October 1 next, said in his order that he was taken into confidence by the other two judges—Justice S U Khan and Justice Sudhir Agarwal—when they rejected the mediation petitions and imposed a hefty fine on petitioner Ramesh Chandra Tripathi.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Friday last rejected a PIL seeking deferment of the decision and settle the matter out of court with a heavy cost. It had imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Tripathi. Justice Sharma had not signed the order. Justice Sharma also said Rs 50,000 fine was not in accordance with the law, which prescribed a maximum of Rs 3,000. He disagreed with his colleagues that the petitioner had “mischievous intentions.”
“I presume that elements of settlement exist between plaintiff number three and defendant number 17,” the judge said in his dissenting note. Incidentaly plaintiff number three is Nirmohi Akhara, one of the claimants to the disputed territory, and the defendant number 17 was Tripathi.
Nirmohi Akhara, one of the main plaintiffs, had filed an application expressing its desire to go for an amicable solution.
DH News Service
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