Allahabad High Court imposes Rs 25,000 costs on a litigant over 70, calling the attempt to withdraw a writ petition after the State flagged forged documents an abuse of the process of the Court.
Lucknow: A petitioner who “took a chance” and then asked to withdraw did not get away. The Allahabad High Court at Lucknow dismissed a writ petition with costs of Rs 25,000 after the State told the Court that it had been filed along with forged documents, and refused the petitioner’s plea to withdraw it [Gareeba v. State of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Deptt. Of Revenue Lko And 2 Others].
The order of 7 October 2026 was passed by a Division Bench of Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai. Additional Chief Standing Counsel Pankaj Khare appeared for the State.
Withdrawal refused
When the matter was called, the petitioner’s counsel said his client wished to withdraw the petition. The State placed instructions on record that the petition had been filed with forged documents. The Bench noted that the petitioner did not dispute this and had no answer to the State’s submissions about the Aadhaar Card filed with the petition. The Court held:
“The allegation of forgery made by the State has not been controverted by the petitioner. The petitioner, now seeking to escape the consequences of the proceedings, has sought permission to withdraw the writ petition. The entire process adopted by the petitioner of “taking a chance” and, upon being unable to succeed, seeking to withdraw the writ petition is deprecated by this Court. Such a prayer for withdrawal cannot be countenanced by this Court at this stage. As the petitioner has not been able to counter the submissions advanced by the State with regard to the Aadhaar Card, the filing of the present writ petition amounts to an abuse of the process of the Court.”
Fraud on the court
Anyone who uses fraud to deflect judicial proceedings must be dealt with firmly, the Bench stressed, both to punish the wrong and to deter others. It observed:
“The stream of administration of justice has to remain unpolluted so that purity of court’s atmosphere may be given vitality to all the organs of the State. The legal position is that the fraud committed to deceive the court could be contempt as it amounts to interfering with the administration of justice.”
Supreme Court rulings the Bench drew on
The Court leaned on a line of Supreme Court decisions about litigants who mislead courts. Chandra Shashi v. Anil Kumar Verma (1995) held that a person who files a fabricated document with intent to deceive the court is guilty of contempt. K.D. Sharma v. Steel Authority of India Limited (2008) held that suppressing or concealing material facts is misrepresentation and an abuse of process that has no place in equitable and prerogative jurisdiction.
The Bench also quoted Dalip Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2010), which described “a new creed of litigants” who “do not have any respect for truth”, and Moti Lal Songara v. Prem Prakash (2013), which held that suppression of the truth is equivalent to the expression of falsehood.
From Dalip Singh, the Bench reproduced the settled rule:
“…it is now well established that a litigant, who attempts to pollute the stream of justice or who touches the pure fountain of justice with tainted hands, is not entitled to any relief, interim or final.”
Costs instead of contempt
Those precedents treat such conduct as capable of amounting to contempt, but the Bench decided against starting contempt proceedings in view of the petitioner’s age. It directed:
“In the present case, taking into consideration the fact that the petitioner is an old person aged more than 70 years and, as such, we are refraining ourselves from initiating contempt proceedings against the petitioner. However, taking into consideration the fact that forged and fabricated documents were filed in the writ petition, we are dismissing the writ petition with costs of ₹25,000/- (Rupees Twenty-Five Thousand) upon the petitioner.”
The petitioner must deposit the costs within fifteen days with the Mediation and Conciliation Centre, Lucknow Bench, and file proof of payment with an affidavit of compliance before the Senior Registrar. If the amount is not paid in time, the Senior Registrar is to act under law to recover it as arrears of land revenue.
What the order tells litigants
Withdrawal is not an exit once the court has been told that its record carries forged papers. By refusing withdrawal and recording the State’s instructions, the Bench saw to it that the forgery was formally dealt with and not quietly dropped. The decision not to begin contempt proceedings against an elderly petitioner, meanwhile, shows the Court weighing proportionality while still imposing a monetary consequence and a recovery mechanism.
Case Title: Gareeba v. State of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Deptt. Of Revenue Lko And 2 Others
Case No.: WRIT – C No. 10064 of 2026
Bench: Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai
Date: 7 October 2026
Appearances: Shashank Tripathi, Prakhar Upadhyay, Rishabh Yadav and Shikhar Upadhyay for the petitioner; Additional Chief Standing Counsel Pankaj Khare for the State