Anil Kumar Patra And ORS. v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

07.11.2024 rpan/08 WPLRT 112 of 2024 Anil Kumar Patra & Others - Versus - The State of West Bengal & Others Mr. Gouranga Kumar Das, Mr. Kapil Chandra Sahoo ... for the Petitioners.

Mr. Sk. Md. Galib, Ms. Sujata Mukherjee ... for the State/Respondents.

Mr. Mrinal Kanti Ghosh ... for the Private Respondent no.22.

Records reveal that the writ petition appeared before this Court earlier on 14th August, 2024 and as the private respondents were not represented in spite of service, the matter was adjourned to give a further opportunity to the private respondents to appear and contest. Today also the said respondents except the respondent no. 22 are not represented.

Mr. Galib, learned advocate and Mr. Ghosh, learned advocate enter appearance on behalf of the State respondents and the respondent no.22 respectively.

The present writ petition arises out of an order dated 21st May, 2024 passed by the learned Tribunal in the original application (in short, OA), being OA 388 of 2015 (LRTT).

Mr. Das, learned advocate appearing for the petitioners submits that the OA is pending since the year 2015 and during pendency of the same, some of the respondents expired and as such, two substitution applications being M.A. 880 of 2021 and M.A. 253 of 2022 were filed before the learned Tribunal but by the order dated 21st May, 2024, the hearing of the same has been deferred and fixed about ten months thereafter on 27th March, 2025. Such delay in fixing a date for hearing is too long in a system where justice is supposed to be swift.

A perusal of the order dated 21st May, 2024 reveals that the hearing was deferred as service upon the private respondents was not complete. However, in the present writ petition though service has been completed, no one has appeared on behalf of the private respondents, save and except the private respondent no.22.

It is for the learned Tribunal to regulate its own procedures in respect of the cases on Board for effective disposal and to ensure that the cases are disposed of within a reasonable period of time. In the said conspectus, we dispose of the writ petition with a direction upon the learned Tribunal to dispose of the applications for substitution on the date fixed, i.e., on 27th March, 2025 and also to make an endeavour to dispose of the original application as expeditiously as possible, preferably within a period of

three months thereafter, without granting any unnecessary adjournment to either of the parties. There shall, however, be no order as to costs. Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties, upon compliance of all requisite formalities.

(Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, J.) (Tapabrata Chakraborty, J.)