The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of the principle behind Order 2 Rule 2 CPC and the doctrine of res judicata in preventing the petitioner from re-agitating the issue before the court.

1. The petitioner has filed the present writ petition seeking to challenge an order issued by the second respondent in favour of the third respondent for the grant of service of Cable TV connection in respect of the houses in the quarters meant for the members of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly at Chennai. An order came to be issued in furtherance of an offer made by the third respondent. The petitioner seeks to set aside the said order and after setting aside the same seeks for a direction to restrain the respondents from in any manner interfering with the right of the petitioner in running the Cable TV network under the name and style of Moon Star Cable TV Network in B-block, Ground Floor of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Members' Residential quarters.

2. In fact, subsequent to the allotment made in favour of the third respondent, permission granted to the petitioner on the expiry of his period of service, i.e., on 20.10.2011, was terminated by a notice dated 04.06.2012. For terminating the arrangement with the petitioner, clause 15 of the terms of allotment made in the original allotment, dated 04.10.2005 was referred to. That order came to be challenged by the petitioner in W.P.No.14684 of 2012 before this court. The contention raised by the petitioner that there was no transparency in the action of the official respondents granting the said benefit in terms of the Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders Act, 1998 was considered in paragraph 6 of the order, dated 14.06.2012, which reads as follows :

"6.) When questioned as to how the petitioner can maintain a writ petition, that too for a direction to grant extension of license, the learned Senior Counsel submitted that though the petitioner may not have any right to get extension but in future if the respondents want to grant any Cable TV Network connection to the MLA Quarters, they should call for tenders. He placed strong reliance on Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders Act, 1998 (for short Act). It must be seen that the said Act will apply only to the establishments which are set out in the Schedule to the Act in terms of Section 2(e) of the Act. Under Section 2(e) of the Act, 'procuring entity' means the entity which are specified in the Schedule and the Schedule only lists out 7 establishments and nowhere, it lists the Assembly Secretariat as one of the 'procuring entity' covered by the provisions of the Act."

3. With reference to the fact that there cannot be any arbitrariness in allotment when calling for open tenders, in paragraph 8, it was answered as follows :

"8.) Thereafter, the learned Senior Counsel stated that since it involves grant of largess, Article 14 is attracted. Therefore, in the interest of transparency and avoiding arbitrariness, the Secretary of the Legislative Assembly should be directed to call for tenders for future Cable TV Network connection in MLA quarters. As noted above, as many as on 10 occasions, the petitioner never got the extension by any tender for getting the Cable TV Network connection. Hence, it is not open to him to state that in future, they should call for tender. In any event, in the matter of offering facility for the MLA quarters and the duty of providing such facilities vest with the Legislative Assembly's Secretariat and it is for the Hon'ble Speaker and the Secretary to decide as to which method by which such facilities can be extended. It does not lie in the mouth of a third party like the petitioner to state that either he should be granted the license directly without going for tender or in the absence of it only by inviting tenders."

Notwithstanding the same, the petitioner has come forward with the present writ petition.

4. The contention raised was that the order is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution and in case of advertisement, he would have been able to participate in the same. He has been running the said service for over 11 years and hence they cannot deny permission.

5. However, this