The Supreme Court recently levied a fine of Rs. 5,00,000 on the Union of India for challenging an order passed by the Meghalaya High Court, despite the Union's admission that a previous decision had already addressed the matter.

Criticizing the Union's decision to contest the High Court's order, the Supreme Court remarked that it constituted a "sheer abuse of the process of law" and warned the Union against submitting frivolous petitions.

Justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Mishra recorded in their order, 'Accordingly, the Special Leave Petitions are dismissed with costs for the reason that before the High Court counsel for the petitioner, Union of India, submitted that the matter was squarely covered by a previous decision and, accordingly, the High Court had disposed of the matter on the statement of the counsel for Union of India.

Before the High Court, the Union had contested an order issued by the Central Administrative Tribunal. In a comparable instance, where the Union had challenged the Tribunal's decision, the High Court dismissed the appeal on March 14, 2022, citing that the Tribunal had provided sufficient justifications. Additionally, the Court acknowledged the legal precedent established by the Karnataka High Court in Union of India vs. M.N. Ramachandra Rao, WP No. 45591 of 2012.

This stance was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court.

Hence, when the current issue was brought before the High Court on April 4, 2022, the Union argued that it could be resolved in light of the March 14 order.

“In view of such fair submission, since the previous writ petition was disposed of without interfering with the relevant order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, the same order is passed herein. It is also made clear that in keeping with the order dated March 14, 2022, the relief that the respondent herein will be entitled to will be confined to what is covered by the legal position indicated in the Karnataka judgment and not beyond.”

The Union then appealed to the Supreme Court against this order. The Supreme Court stated that there was no justification for the Union to challenge the aforementioned order through this Special Leave Petition.

“We have further perused the order dated 14th March, 2022 and we find that the present matter was disposed of in the same terms as in the order dated 14th March, 2022. There was no occasion or justification for the Union of India to have challenged the said order by way of this Special Leave Petition.”

Following the imposition of the aforementioned fine, the Court instructed that it be deposited into the Armed Forces Battle Casualties Welfare Fund within eight weeks. Subsequently, one week after the deposit, the Union was obligated to provide proof of such deposit to the Registry of the Supreme Court.

The petitioner was represented by Additional Solicitor General of India Vikramjeet Banerjee, while the respondents were represented by Advocate on Record Avijit Roy.