A city court found itself in a Catch-22 situation when it discovered that whichever way it decided to go while deciding a case, it could never have a just and desired result.

Reason — all parties connected to the case, including the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), had committed wrongs even as they levelled a spate of allegations against each other during the three-year-old proceedings.

A petitioner, found to be an alleged extortionist, tried to use court proceedings to fleece money from others. The builder, against whom the suit was filed, had in fact, constructed a five-storeyed building flouting all municipal laws. And the MCD had “deliberately” chosen to close its eyes and allowed the illegal construction to go on.

When a bewildered Additional District Judge (ADJ), Kamini Lau, figured out what had happened, she held that a court could not be permitted to be used as a platform where all wrongdoers blatantly abuse legal processes.

The court then decided to take everyone to task for having “scant regard for the law” and “shutting their eyes to the violations”.

ADJ Lau dismissed the petitioner’s suit and imposed a penalty of Rs 20,000 upon him. The builder has also been asked to do away with the violations and the copy of the judgment has to be placed before the Monitoring Committee, Supreme Court of India, for appropriate action.

The MCD Commissioner has also been ordered to take adequate departmental action against errant officials.

The suit was filed by Gopi Chand against Ravinder Singh and the MCD in January 2006. Chand claimed that Singh had constructed a building in his neighbourhood -- Old Rajinder Nagar -- by encroaching upon the public land and that the structure was tilted, at around 80 degrees, towards the road. Despite the complaints, the MCD took no action, he contended. Defending himself, Singh said that Chand himself was a builder and had filed the suit with an ulterior motive to extort money from him.

... contd.