"Game of judicial hide and seek": Karnataka High Court slaps ₹10 lakh costs on litigants

The Karnataka High Court recently imposed exemplary costs of ₹10 lakhs on five litigants who had sought to challenge a land acquisition that began in 1986, on finding that they suppressed fact that they had failed in eight earlier rounds of litigation in the same matter [Smt. Gangamma and ors v. State of Karnataka and ors]..Justice M Nagaprasanna opined that the imposition of such heavy costs was warranted to to ensure that the administration of justice does not become a playground for unscrupulous litigants. "Any litigant who dares to sully the sanctity of judicial proceedings through deceit, misrepresentation or fraud, commits on egregious affront to the majesty of justice itself. Such conduct constitutes a direct assault on the very edifice of judicial integrity. The Courts must respond not with mere disapproval, but resolute censure. Justice, if it is to remain untainted, demands that those who attempt to pervert its course, must be met not only with stern repudiation, but with consequences potent enough to serve as a salutary warning to others. Therefore, the writ petition does not merely merit dismissal; it calls for rejection with exemplary costs, so that justice does not become a playground for the unscrupulous," the July 21 ruling said. .He proceeded to order the petitioners to pay ₹10 lakhs as costs to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority within four weeks from the receipt of the order. .The case concerned 2 acres and 20 guntas of land that was registered in the names of late Venkata Bhovi @ Dasappa and late Hanumantha Bhovi in 1979. In 1986, the State issued a draft notification under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 to acquire this land, as part of a proposal to give a cooperative society 16 acres of land for the development of a residential area.A final notification was issued in 1987 and the two landowners were also paid compensation. However, their legal heirs later contested the land acquisition proceedings. In 1993, a suit was filed by the heirs before a civil court. In 1994, the cooperative society approached the High Court with a plea complaining of delay by the State authorities in handing over the acquired land. The High Court allowed the cooperative society's plea and ordered the State to hand over possession of the land. More litigation followed in 1997, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2012 and 2016, before the civil court and before the High Court (including appellate proceedings). In all of these cases, the legal heirs of the original landowners failed to succeed. .Thereafter, a writ petition was filed in January 2025 by these heirs in which it was highlighted that in 1993, there was a recommendation made to drop their ancestors' land from the land acquisition proceedings. The Court, however, was not impressed on noting that this ground was urged for the first time in the latest round of litigation. The law frowns upon such fragmented litigant and strategic silence, it observed.The Court further remarked that the litigants seemed to be resorting to a game of "judicial hide and seek.""This belated revelation (about the 1993 recommendation) is tendered as if it were an epiphany, on such score, the petitioners seek to undo decades of judicial deliberation. But, much water has flown beneath the bridge since that year, as the petitioners, or their kin, have embarked upon odyssey through eight rounds of litigation swinging between candour and concealment. What I witness is, not the pursuit of justice, but a game of judicial hide and seek, where one of the family members of the grantee seeks invocation of the writ jurisdiction, while the other member, hides. Later, the other member seeks, and the former hides. Such cynical use of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, must be arrested in its tracks," it said. .It proceeded to dismiss the writ petition with costs, observing that it should serve as a warning to every litigant that if they want relief from the Court, they cannot come with unclean hands or by suppressing material facts."If the petition is now entertained on any score, it would amount to putting a premium on litigative persistence of the petitioners and rewarding abuse of the process and tacit fraud played on this Court, as this forms the ninth petition on the same cause of action, seeking the very same prayer, differently worded, after the dismissal of eight rounds of litigation, all of which are suppressed in the subject petition," it added. .Senior Advocate KN Phanindra along with Advocate Sri Bharath Kumar V represented the petitioners. High Court Government Pleader Spoorthy Hegde N represented the State of Karnataka.Senior Advocate D Ravishankar along with Advocate K Ananda appeared for the Gavipuram Extension House Building Cooperative Society. .[Read Judgment]