An affidavit filed in support of a petition or application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India must be properly affirmed by a person who has knowledge of the facts stated in the petition or application.

( 1 ) ON July 19, 1976, a Rule against notices in Annexures "b" and "c" to the petition was issued by this Court whereby suo moto proceedings were initiated under the provisions of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955. The said petition was signed and verified by one Ananda Bhairab Ghose claiming to be the Karmachari and Tadbirkar of the petitioner. All statements in the said petition excepting those made in paragraphs 6 and 11 to 19 were affirmed as true to his knowledge. There has of course been a certificate by the learned Advocate that the said deponent was the authorised Karmachari of the petitioner and was competent to affirm the affidavit and sign the petition on his behalf.

( 2 ) AT the time of issuing the Rule, this Court was pleased to grant an order maintaining status quo as on July 19, 1976 for a period of six weeks, with liberty to the petitioner to apply for extension of the said order on the petition of motion with notice to the Respondents. The petitioner was further directed to file an affidavit of service after communication of the gist of the order as made along with the copy of the petition. Such affidavit of service appears to have been filed on September 16, 1976. The affidavit of service was of course affirmed by another Tadbirkar of the petitioner whose name is Bishnupada Chakrabartty. It further appears that another Rule being Civil Rule No. 8865 (W) of 1976 was also obtained by the petitioner against certain orders made and passed under the provisions of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953 on June 24, 1976. The affidavit to that petition was affirmed by one Shri Puru-shottam Samanta, another Tadbirkar of the petitioner. There is also a certificate appended to that petition that the said Tadbirkar, Shri Purushottam Samanta was duly authorised by the petitioner to sign the petition and also to swear the affidavit. A petitioner may have any number of Tadbirkarg as there is no legal restriction on such numbers.

( 3 ) SINCE at different stages different Tadbirkars have affirmed affidavits on behalf of the petitioner, I wanted to satisfy myself whether the Tadbirkar of the present petition viz. , Shri Ananda Bhairab Ghose was really authorised and whether the affirmations made by him were correct and whether in a writ proceedings, where a petitioner would be asking for high prerogative writs or orders, affidavit by such Tadbirkar should be made.

( 4 ) FOR the purposes as aforesaid, I directed the said Tadbirkar Shri Ananda Bhairab Ghose to appear before me, since the High Court has power to be satisfied when it is required to exercise its discretion in this jurisdiction on the affidavit as filed and on January 6, 1977, his deposition was recorded. From his deposition it appears that although the said deponent had affirmed the affidavit as Tadbirkar and was working under the petitioner for a long time yet he had very little or scanty knowledge about the happenings and the statements as contained in the petition, which he affirmed as true to his knowledge were without any real or little knowledge, about them. In fact he had to admit that the statements as made by him in the petition were really based on informations from his employer. Thus it is apparent that there is no proper affirmation of the petition and on the basis of such improper affidavit this Court cannot and should not direct the issue of such high prerogative writs or orders as have been prayed for.

( 5 ) UNDER Order 6, Rule 15 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a pleading may be verified by one of the parties pleading or by some other person proved to the satisfaction of the Court to be acquainted with the facts of the case. Under Rule 8 of Chapter VII of the Original Side Rules, where any person, other than, a party pleading, verifies a pleading: under Order 6, Rule 15 of the Code of Civil Procedure, his fitness or authority to so verify shall be proved by his affidavit. Under Rule 13 of the Rules relating to applica