Delhi high court fines petitioner for 'wasting' its time

Frivolous petitioners be warned. The courts have woken up to your tricks.

On Monday, the Delhi high court imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Ashok Batra for filing an unjustified complaint against four Citibank officials.

"Frivolous petitions of this nature result in the wastage of court's time. It is necessary to put an end to such petitions," the division bench, comprising Justices Y K Sabharwal and A K Srivastava, observed while dismissing the complaint.

In his petition, Batra said he had taken a Rs 60,000 loan from the bank to purchase a Maruti Omni. This loan was repayable in 36 instalments, for which he had issued several post-dated cheques.

However, the bank had filed a writ in a civil court for recovering Rs 104,212, alleging his cheques had bounced.

In response, Batra filed a statement denying his cheques had been dishonoured, but admitted that he had not paid any instalment. He claimed he had written a letter to the bank stating he was not in a position to make the payment, and hence they could take possession of the vehicle. He also claimed that a bank official took possession of the vehicle.

The bank, in turn, filed a petition before the additional district judge denying the receipt of any letter written by the petitioner. It said he had concocted the story to delay the payment further.

The high court stated it was not concerned with the matter, as the issue was already being judged by another court. Moving a higher court when the case is pending in a lower court is an abuse of the process of law, the bench ruled.

UNI