Allahabad High Court: A Division Bench of Pradeep Kumar Singh Baghel and Piyush Agrawal, JJ., while disposing of the writ petition directed Respondent 2 to decide the pending appeal of the petitioner expeditiously, preferably within a period of three months.
In the instant case, the petitioner is the resident of Badaun. Respondent 3 demanded the remaining house tax and water tax by issuing a notice. The notice was objected by the petitioner and then later on rejected by the respondent 3 and thereafter filed an appeal under Section 160 of The U.P. Municipalities Act, 1916 (the Act) before respondent 2 and the same was pending.
Pradeep Kumar, Counsel for the petitioner submitted that an illegal demand was created by the respondent 3 and the appeal of the petitioner has not been decided by respondent 2.
Jai Bahadur Singh, Counsel for the respondent 3 submitted that the appeal will be decided in due course. In support of his submission he relied upon the Division Bench judgment of this Court in Ali Shad Usmani v. Ali Isteba, 2014 SCC OnLine All 15838 where this Court has held as follows:
Simply for the purpose of expediting the hearing of a suit it is inappropriate to entertain a writ petition under Article 226 and/or under Article 227 of the Constitution. Such orders, if granted, place a class of litigants, who move the court in a separate and preferential category whereas other cases which may be of similar or greater antiquity and urgency are left to be decided in the normal channel. Otherwise the Civil Courts will be overburdened only with requests for expeditious disposal of suits, which have been expedited by the High Court. Most of the litigants cannot afford the expense of moving the High court and would not, therefore, be in a position to have the benefit of such an order.
However, on facts of the present case, and in the interest of justice, the Court directed expeditious disposal of the pending appeal as mentioned above.[Mohammad Idris v. State of U.P., 2019 SCC OnLine All 3078, decided on 26-08-2019]
