The court emphasized that a writ petition should not be disposed of as premature when there is sufficient material on record to adjudicate the grievance and hold for or against the petitioner on merits.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Petition filed under Order 47 Rule 1 of CPC against the order dated 23.06.2021 made in W.P.(MD) No. 9667 of 2019.)

Paresh Upadhyay, J.

1. By this application, the petitioner has prayed for review of the order of this Court dated 23.06.2021 recorded on W.P(MD) No. 9667 of 2019.

2. Heard Mr.Isaac Mohanlal, learned Senior Advocate for the petitioner and Mr.C.Prasana Venkatesh for the respondents / SEBI.

3. At the outset it is noted that, learned advocate for the respondents / SEBI has raised preliminary objection about the maintainability of this review application. Without prejudice to that, it is submitted that, even on merits this is not the case where the order passed by this Court should be reviewed in any manner.

4. Learned Senior Advocate for the petitioner has addressed the Court at length inter-alia contending that the order dated 23.06.2021 was on erroneous assumption of fact. Further the prayer clause of the petitioner was very clear, however the petition is not considered on merits but was disposed of as premature. Attention of the Court is invited to the concluding part of the order (para : 8), which reads as under:-

“8. Therefore, we are of the view that the present Writ Petition is premature. Hence, leaving all issues open, the Writ Petition stands closed. No costs. Consequently, the connected Miscellaneous Petition is closed.” (emphasis supplied)

5. We note that, learned Senior Advocate for the petitioner has also addressed the Court at length even on merits of the matter by referring to the pleadings, including the counter filed by the respondents / SEBI, however since this is not the stage where merits of the matter can be gone into, we have not recorded those submissions in detail. It is submitted by him that this review be allowed.

6. Learned advocate for the respondents / SEBI has also addressed the Court on merits, to the extent necessary, substance of which is that, the SEBI being regulatory authority is doing everything required under law, however it is done with due caution since its actions directly affect the financial market. It is submitted that, apart from maintainability, even on merits, this application be dismissed.

7. Having heard learned advocates for the respective parties and having considered the material on record this Court finds that, in this review application the only point for consideration is, whether the order dated 23.06.2021 needs to be reviewed in any manner and whether the petition could be disposed of as premature or was otherwise required to be heard on merits.

8. Keeping in view the above limited scope of this review application, we find that, it is not in dispute that the writ petition was after the earlier round of litigation and the stakes involved in the matter are irregularities worth thousands of crores of rupees. Further, when the petition was disposed of, the alleged irregularity pertained to the period about a decade back. We find that, there was sufficient material on record – running into hundreds of pages including the counter by the respondent to adjudicate the grievance and to hold for / or against the petitioner on merits but the petition ought not to have been disposed of as premature.

9. Though learned Senior Advocate for the petitioner has also made submission that, the decision sought to be reviewed was also on erroneous assumption of fact, we have not examined that aspect, since the disposal of the writ petition was by treating it as premature, and that part of the order being re-called.

10. For the above reasons, the following order is passed.

10.1 This Review Application is held to be maintainable and is allowed.

10.2 The order dated 23.06.2021 recorded by this Court on W.P(MD)No. 9667 of 2019 is re-called and the said writ petition is ordered to be heard and decided on merits.

10.3 Registry shall do the needful to list W.P(MD)No. 9667 of 2019 for hearing.