The principle of clean hands and equitable relief was central to the court's decision, emphasizing the importance of approaching the court with clean hands and not abusing the process of law.

S. MANIKUMAR, J.

On the submissions of Mr.VR.Shanmuganathan, learned Special Government Pleader, that there is a suppression in filing the subsequent writ petition W.P.(MD).No.8895/2015, We directed the Registry to put up the entire bundle in W.P.(MD).No. 18129/2013.

2. We have perused the order passed thereon. Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus sought for to quash the order of the District Educational Officer, Aranthangi, Pudukkottai District, in Na.Ka.No.1672/A1/2001, dated 13.06.2013, and consequential prayer for a direction to the respondents therein to provide employment assistance on compassionate ground, has been considered in detail and vide order, dated 11.11.2013, prayer sought for in W.P.(MD).No.18129 of 2013, has been negatived and writ petition has been dismissed.

3. At paragraph number 1 of the affidavit filed in the present W.P.(MD).No.8895 of 2015, the petitioner has stated that W.P. (MD).No.8895 of 2015 is the first writ petition filed by him, for the relief sought for. In the light of the dismissal of the earlier writ petition in W.P.(MD).No.18129 of 2013, challenging the very same proceedings impugned in another W.P.(MD).No.8895 of 2015, statement of the respondent is false. There is also suppression of the filing of the earlier writ petition, challenging the very same proceedings and orders passed thereon.

4. As regards suppression, useful reference can be made to the decision of the Supreme Court in Arunima Baruah v. Union of India reported in 2007 (6) SCC 120, wherein, at Paragraphs 11 to 14, it held as follows:

11. The court’s jurisdiction to determine the lis between the parties, therefore, may be viewed from the human rights concept of access to justice. The same, however, would not mean that the court will have no jurisdiction to deny equitable relief when the complainant does not approach the court with a pair of clean hands; but to what extent such relief should be denied is the question.

12. .......It is also trite that a person invoking the discretionary jurisdiction of the court cannot be allowed to approach it with a pair of dirty hands. But even if the said dirt is removed and the hands become clean, whether the relief would still be denied is the question.

13. In Moody v. Cox [(1917) 2 Ch. 71: (1916-17) All ER Rep 548 (CA)], it was held: (All ER pp. 555 I-556 D)

"When one asks on what principle this is supposed to be based, one receives in answer the maxim that anyone coming to equity must come with clean hands. I think the expression “clean hands” is used more often in the textbooks than it is in the judgments, though it is occasionally used in the judgments, but I was very much surprised to hear that when a contract, obtained by the giving of a bribe, had been affirmed by the person who had a primary right to affirm it, not being an illegal contract, the courts of equity could be so scrupulous that they would refuse any relief not connected at all with the bribe. I was glad to find that it was not the case, because I think it is quite clear that the passage in Dering v. Earl of Winchelsea [(1787) 1 Cox Eq Cas 318: 2 Bos & P 270], which has been referred to, shows that equity will not apply the principle about clean hands unless the depravity, the dirt in question on the hand, has an immediate and necessary relation to the equity sued for."

14. In Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th Edn., Vol. 16, pp. 874-76, the law is stated in the following terms:

“1303. He who seeks equity must do equity.—In granting relief peculiar to its own jurisdiction a court of equity acts upon the rule that he who seeks equity must do equity. By this it is not meant that the court can impose arbitrary conditions upon a plaintiff simply because he stands in that position on the record. The rule means that a man who comes to seek the aid of a court of equity to enforce a claim must be prepared to submit in such proceedings to any directions which the known principles of a court of equity may make it proper to give; he must