A litigant approaching the court seeking equity must come with clean hands and disclose all material facts. Suppression of material facts and failure to comply with court directions disqualify the litigant from obtaining any relief.

JUDGMENT :

SHAJI P. CHALY, J.

This appeal is preferred by the petitioner in W.P.(C) No. 28478 of 2020, challenging the judgment of the learned single Judge dated 27.01.2021, whereby the learned single Judge dismissed the writ petition basically holding that the writ petitioner has not approached the writ court with clean hands and has raised baseless allegations disentitling him from securing any relief under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

2. In fact, in the writ petition, the petitioner has sought for a writ or order quashing Exts.P11 and P13 orders passed by the Ombudsman-cum-Ethics Officer for the Kerala Cricket Association in O.A. No. 10 of 2019; a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, direction or order to the Ombudsman to ensure that the Kerala Cricket Association ie., the second respondent complies with the recommendations of the Justice Lodha Committee and implement the same in the District bye laws as is done in Ext. P15 order passed by the Ombudsman in regard to the Andhra Cricket Association; and further a writ or direction to the Ombudsman to ensure that the KCA conducts election to the Kerala Cricket Association only after ensuring that the election to the District Associations are conducted strictly in terms of the model bye law brought out by the Justice Lodha Committee.

3. In order to secure the reliefs, it was contended by the appellant that the Original Application filed by the appellant praying for a common bye law for all District Cricket Associations within the State unit was dismissed without any consideration on merits as per an order dated 03.10.2020 by the Ombudsman-cum-Ethics Officer for the Kerala Cricket Association—first respondent. The Ombudsman had dismissed the application filed by the writ petitioner when it was posted for final hearing on 03-10-2020 for the reason that the directions in the orders dated 13.02.2020, 25.02.2020 and 10.03.2020 for impleading the District Associations were not complied with by the writ petitioner. The contention advanced by the writ petitioner in that regard is that though the impugned order dated 03.10.2020 refers to the orders dated 13.02.2020, 25.02.2020 and 10.03.2020, there was no discussion or direction to implead all District Associations on those days.

4. According to the writ petitioner, the factum of existence of those defects were not communicated to the appellant, that on 13.02.2020, the matter was adjourned due to the inconvenience of the advocate for the writ petitioner, that on 25.02.2020 the matter was adjourned due to the non availability of the council of Kerala Cricket Association and none of the matters listed on that day was taken up, and that on 10.03.2020 the Ombudsman requested for some time to study the file and the matter was adjourned again. It was further contended that the orders passed on the aforesaid dates became known to the writ petitioner for the first time from the impugned order dismissing the OA dated 03.10.2020.

5. That apart, it was contended that when the matter was taken up on 03.10.2020 through Video Conferencing, the counsel appearing for the appellant had joined through video link at 10.58 a.m., only to be disconnected/removed from the video link within a minute of the sitting even before the matter was taken up and soon thereafter, the Ombudsman proceeded to dismiss the matter being defective. Contentions are also raised to the effect that the earlier Ombudsman, as per an order dated 02.08.2019, rejected the preliminary objection in regard to the impleadment of the District Associations holding that if all the District Associations in the State are to be impleaded after notice to them, it may entail unnecessary delay and accordingly suggested the Kerala Cricket Association to elicit the views of the District associations and consider the same.

6. It was also the submission of the appellant that after the said order, the counsel for the Kerala Cricket Association, on 20.09.2019 and 26.09.2019, sought time