ALL INDIA STATE BANK OFFICERS FEDERATION THROUGH ITS PRESIDENT AND ORS. ETC. versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

Citation: [1990] 2 S.C.R. 493 · Decided: 16-04-1990 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S. RANGANATHAN

Judgment (excerpt)

+= 
ALL INDIA STATE BANK OFFICERS FEDERATION 
THROUGH ITS PRESIDENT AND ORS. ETC. 
v. 
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. 
APRIL 16, 1990 
[S. RANGANATHAN, J.S. VERMA AND 
M. FATHIMA BEEVI, JJ.] 
Constitution of India 1950: Article 32-Writ Petition-Reckless 
statements and deliberate mis-statements-Making of-Court records 
A 
B 
strong disapproval. 
c 
Practice a_nd Procedure: Writ Petitions-Simultaneous filing of in 
various High Courts-A practice which has to be discouraged. 
The All India State Bank Officers' Federation filed a Writ Peti-
tion in this Court on the 24th April, 1989 seeking to impugn a new 
promotion policy initiated by the State Bank of India. The petition was 
supported by an affidavit of the President of the Federation a!Tmning 
the contents of the petition to be true to his personal knowledge, and 
submitting in paragraph 9(mm) of the petition that the petitioners were 
approaching this Court in great haste as the Bank was moving with 
great speed to Implement its new promotion policy and was likely to 
constitute a Departmental Promotion Committee, and declare the 
results. In para 4 it was submitted that the petitioners bad not filed any 
other similar petition either in this Court or any other High Court. 
When the writ petition came up for admission before a Bench of 
this Court on April 26, 1989, counsel for the State Bank of India was 
present and accepted notice on behalf of the Bank. 
The Writ Petition was contested by the Bank which submitted in 
its counter affidavit that the statement in para 4 of the petition in 
support of the writ petition was false, and pointed out that the Federa-
tion through its Deputy General Secretary bad filed a Writ Petition in 
the High Court of Andhra Pradesh along with an application seeking 
stay of the promotion policy, and that the High Court admitted the Writ 
Petition on April 13, 1989 but rejected the application for interim stay, 
and further pointed out that another petition had been filed by the State 
Bank of India Officers' Association (Karnataka) in the Karnataka 
High Court. A second .objection as regards the maintainability of the 
493 
D 
E 
F 
G 
H 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
H 
494 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
l 1990] 2 S.C.R. 
petition "was raised in para 3 that since the promotions had already been 
made they could not be disturbed and that no steps were taken to 
implead those officers, who would be directly affected as a result of the 
prayer made in the writ petition. 
To the aforesaid objections raised by the Bank the petitioner filed 
a rejoinder supported by an affidavit of the President of the Federation, 
submitting that the deponent did not have any knowledge of the writ 
petition filed in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, and that as soon as 
it came to his knowledge it was withdrawn. and that the petitioners did 
not know the names of all the 58 candidates who had been promoted 
favoured. 
When the Writ Petition was taken up for further hearing on April 
S, 1990, counsel for the Bank objected to the maintainability of the writ 
petition on the grounds of suppression of material facts and abuse of the 
process of court. The Court directed the petitioner to file a better 
affidavit, and the petitioner Federation filed a better affidavit •"<plain-
ing the correct position and tendering an unqualified apology for the 
mis-statements in the earlier affidavit, but still reiterated that they 
came to know of the writ petition in the Andhra Pradesh High Court 
only on April 23, 1989 and that, at the time of the preliminary hearing, 
it was brought to the notice of the Court by the Respondent's counsel. 
The respondent pointed out that the statements made in the 
rejoinder filed by the petitioners that they were not aware of the names 
of the promoted officers till November, 1989 was a total falsehood 
because; (i) the writ petition filed in the Karnataka High Court made 
all of them parties to the writ petition, and (ii) the names of the pro-
moted officers were listed in the fortnightly bulletin of the State Bank 
Officers' Association dated Jst May, 1989 carrying a message of con-
gratulations to all of them. 
Disposing of the preliminary objections and adjourning the writ 
petition for further hearing on merits, the Court, 
HELD: I. Apart from mis-statements in the affidavits filed before 
this Court the petitioner federation has clearly resorted to tactics which 
can only be described as abuse of the process of court. The simnltaneous 
filing of writ

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