Punjab & Haryana High Court Deprecates Trend Of Filing 'Misconceived' Appeals Against Interim Orders In Pending Cases, Imposes ₹50K Cost

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has imposed a cost of Rs.50,000 on a litigant for discourage filing of "misconceived" Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) against innocuous orders in pending cases.

While noting that in the present case the writ is already pending, Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Meenakshi I. Mehta  said, "Suffice it to note that the present appeal is in gross abuse and misuse of the process of law and accordingly the same is dismissed with costs of Rs.50,000/- to be deposited by the appellants with the High Court Legal Services Authority as tendency of filing such misconceived LPAs should be discouraged."

Speaking for the bench Justice Sharma pointed that recently a tendency has arisen before the Court wherein LPAs are being filed against innocuous orders passed by the Single Judge in pending writ petitions.

"We have noticed that upon being confronted, the appeals are being withdrawn," added the Court.

In the present case, the LPA was filed challenge the order rejecting the application filed by the appellants seeking prayer to stay the operation of order impugned before the Single Judge.

The plea also sought to restrain the respondents from carrying out promotions from the post of Block Education Officer to Deputy District Education Officer and District Education Officer, during the pendency of the main writ petition.

After analysing the submissions, the Court noted,  "the appellants had challenged the...two orders in the writ petition and the Hon'ble Single Judge had issued notice of motion on 07.03.2025."

The Court highlighted that reply had not yet been filed and before the respondents could submit their response, an application was filed for seeking interim stay. The Single Judge had, therefore, refused to entertain the application at that stage.

It opined that, "once the Court issues notice of motion, any orders to be passed of urgent nature can be in respect of any order which the respondents may issue after the notice of motion has been issued."

"However, for the orders which are under challenge and the Court has issued notice of motion, it is always appropriate to receive response/reply from the respondents and then examine the prayer for interim stay. We find that the course adopted by the learned Single Judge is, thus, in conformity with our view when he refused to entertain the application at that stage where there is no reply," it added.

Stating that "we would refrain ourselves from making any observations relating to the merits of the case as the writ petition is still pending before the learned Single Judge," the plea was dismissed.

Mr. Adityajit Singh Chadha, Advocate for Mr. D.S. Patwalia, Sr. Advocate for the appellants.

Title: Subhash Chander Bhambhu and others v. State of Haryana

Click here to read/download the order