Rajasthan High Court imposes cost of ₹5 Lakhs for non-disclosure of coordinate Bench’s previous order, deems it as “adding fuel to fire”

The Additional Advocate General brought the Court’s attention to a previous order, where the Coordinate Bench of this Court directed the educational institution to apply for a fresh NOC before seeking further relief for future academic years.

Rajasthan High Court

Rajasthan High Court: In a writ petition filed by an educational institution, seeking multiple reliefs related to its intake capacity for the General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) Course, a single-judge bench of Dinesh Mehta, J., dismissed the petition and imposed a cost of ₹5,00,000/- on the petitioner on the ground of the petitioner’s obligation to apply for a fresh NOC and failure to disclose the previous order.

“Filing of the present writ petition is therefore, clearly in defiance of the earlier order passed by Co-ordinate Bench of this Court. And then, non-disclosure of earlier writ petition and not bringing the said order to the notice of the Court is like adding fuel to fire – it cannot be taken lightly.”

In the instant matter, the petitioner institution filed a writ petition requesting the seeking directions to allow the admission of 100 students in the GNM (General Nursing and Midwifery) course for the academic session 2024-25, inclusion in the counseling process for the GNM course, recommendations for the enhancement of seats and acceptance of fees for the increased intake and other reliefs, including litigation costs and damages.

On a previous date (10-09-2024), the Court directed the respondent-State to clarify whether the petitioner institution, which had been granted a No Objection Certificate (NOC), could participate in the counseling process for 100 students.

The Additional Advocate General (AAG) brought the Court’s attention to an earlier order dated 07-11-2023, where the petitioner was previously involved in a similar matter for the academic year 2022-23 (S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 9837/2022) and the Court emphasised that the petitioner could not file a subsequent petition without first applying for a fresh NOC for the new academic session.

The main issue in hand is that whether the petitioner institution can proceed with the current writ petition without applying for a fresh NOC as per the prior court order and whether the petitioner failed to disclose a previous court order dated 07-11-2023, which was passed in an earlier writ petition for the academic session 2022-23.

The petitioner argued that it already held an NOC and therefore did not need to apply for a fresh NOC. It was also submitted that a review petition (S.B. Review Petition No.117/2023) in another case is pending, and the failure to disclose the earlier order is inadvertent. However, the State pointed out that the petitioner failed to apply for a fresh NOC, as explicitly required by the previous court order from 07-11-2023 and also highlighted the petitioner’s omission to disclose this crucial fact and order before the Court.

The Court dismissed the writ petition and held that —

The petitioner was bound by the previous court order dated 07-11-2023, which mandated that a fresh NOC must be applied for every new academic session.

Filing the current writ petition without applying for the NOC and not disclosing the earlier court order amounted to defiance of the Court’s previous directions.

The petitioner’s action in withholding the earlier order and citing urgency to have the matter listed repeatedly was misleading.

The Court imposed a cost of ₹5,00,000/- on the petitioner, to be paid to the State Government for the welfare of nurses in the Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) area. The Court stated that failure to pay within two months would lead to recovery of the amount as arrears of land revenue, and the State was granted liberty to de-recognize the petitioner institution if the amount was not paid. The Court also dismissed the stay application.

[Indira Education Institute of Nursing v. State of Rajasthan, 2024 SCC OnLine Raj 2915, Decided on 25-09-2024]


Advocates who appeared in this case:

Mr. Ankur Mathur with Mr. Harshvardhan Singh, Counsel for the Petitioners

Mr. NS Rajpurohit, AAG assisted by Ms. Ruchi Parihar, Counsel for the Respondents

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