By IANS,
New Delhi : A Lucknow-based advocate approached the Supreme Court Monday accusing its registry of giving him the wrong dates for hearing of his lawsuit against the Uttar Pradesh government, which led to its dismissal due to his absence during its hearing.
Crying foul against the apex court’s registry, advocate Sangam Lal Pandey sought revival of his lawsuit, which had objected to the Mayawati government’s plan to demolish the sprawling 195-acre Lucknow Jail and three historical temples within the jail premises, adjacent to city’s Ambedkar Park to pave way for an ecological park.
An bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan had disposed off Pandey’s lawsuit Nov 6 without granting him any relief after senior advocates Satish Chandra Mishra and Shail Dwiwedi, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, told the court that Pandey did not appear interested in pursuing his case as he was absent that day.
They also pointed out Pandey’s absence on an earlier date, Oct 19.
Pandey has now moved the apex court with the plea that he failed to appear on the last two dates as the apex court registry either informed him of wrong dates for hearing of his lawsuit or did not inform him at all.
In his new application for restoration of his lawsuit, Pandey said that days before Oct 19, the date slated for hearing of his lawsuit, the apex court registry had sent him a notice that his matter has now been listed for hearing on Jan 18, 2010, instead of Oct 19, 2009.
Pandey also annexed the registry’s purported notice dated Oct 3, 2009, with his application, and said that despite this notice the court heard the matter on Oct 19 itself.
Explaining his absence on Nov 6, Pandey said that after the Oct 19 hearing, the matter was listed for Nov 27, but the hearing was again advanced to Nov 6 without any intimation to him.
Acting on lawsuits by Pandey and some others, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had halted the planned demolition of the jail in May this year as the petitioners had objected to the government’s plan to annex the sprawling 195 acres of the jail’s land to the adjacent Ambedkar Park, being developed into a statue gallery of Dalit leaders.
The state government had moved the apex court in July this year and had persuaded it to suspend the high court’s order, assuring it that the jail’s land would be utilised only to make an ecological park with no statue or construction on it.
After the state government, Pandey too moved the apex court. On Pandey’s lawsuit, the apex court Aug 7 stopped the state government from demolishing the jail till Aug 28.
The court subsequently on Sep 4 also stopped the planned demolition of three temples inside the jail premises, and ordered that these would not be demolished till Sep 18 if they actually existed there. The state government had contended that they did not exist at all.
But, Pandey told the apex court that despite pendency of his applications and lawsuits, the state government had been demolishing the temples and the jail building on various flimsy excuses.
Now the government has got his lawsuit dismissed on account of his absence from the court, for which he was not to be blamed, Pandey told reporters.