A person seeking equity must come with clean hands and act in a fair and equitable manner.

Sudhir Agarwal,J.

Heard Sri Pankaj Agrawal, Advocate for the petitioner and Sri Manu Saxena, Advocate for respondent.

2. It is contended that there was no compliance of proviso to Section 21(1)(a) of U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the "Act, 1972") and no notice was ever served upon petitioner, hence the entire proceedings as well as release application are illegal and liable to be set aside.

3. Sri Pankaj Agrawal, learned counsel for the petitioner, drew my attention to notice dated 26.08.1988, photocopy whereof is on page 78 of paper book and photocopy of acknowledgement is on page 80 of the paper book, to show that there is no endorsement regarding refusal thereon and, therefore, finding recorded by Lower Appellate Court in respect to issue No. 1 in the impugned judgment dated 12.09.2013 with respect to service of notice dated 26.08.1988 is perverse since it was never refused by petitioner and the postal department did not return it with any endorsement of refusal.

4. Sri Manu Saxena, learned counsel appearing for respondent, drew my attention to certified copy of notice dated 26.08.1988 and also the registered envelop's photocopy containing endorsement of postal department of refusal dated 30.08.1988, stating that this document has been concealed by petitioner and he has filed only one side of photocopy of notice which was produced before court below but the photocopy of envelop of registered notice bearing registry receipt No. 4472, dated 28.08.1988 wherein endorsement of refusal has been mentioned, has not been brought on record and this is nothing but a sheer concealment of material fact on the part of petitioner. It is contended by Sri Manu Saxena that petitioner has not approached this Court with clean hands and there is an evident attempt on his part to mislead this Court by showing pleadings in paras 20, 21, 22 and 24 of the writ petition contending that no notice was ever sought to be served upon petitioner which was refused and there was no evidence before court below still it has recorded a finding which is perverse and based on no evidence, though as a matter of fact in respect to notice dated 26.08.1988, photocopy of envelop was already there which contains endorsement of "refusal" and return. The aforesaid certified copy of notice and envelop, produced before this Court, is taken on record.

5. When confronted with the above document, Sri Pankaj Agrawal, learned counsel for the petitioner, immediately stated that this fact was not correctly informed to his by petitioner and expressed regret.

6. Evidently the petitioner has approached this Court with unclean hands, by concealment of material. In my view, this writ petition deserve to be dismissed with costs, since this Court under Article 226 /227 would not be justified to grant indulgence to a person who has come with unclean hands and with concealment of material facts.

7. In Ram Saran Vs. IG of Police, CRPF and others, (2006) 2 SCC 541 , the Apex Court observed "A person who seeks equity must come with clean hands. He, who comes to the court with false claims, cannot plead equity nor would the court be justified to exercise equity jurisdiction in his favour. A person who seeks equity must act in a fair and equitable manner. ..............."

8. In Ram Preeti Yadav Vs. U.P. Board of High School and Intermediate Education and others, 2003 (Suppl.) 3 SCR 352, it was reiterated after referring to various earlier decisions of the Apex Court that fraud misrepresentation and concealment of material fact vitiates all solemn acts. In State of Andhra Pradesh & another Vs. T. Suryachandra Rao, AIR 2005 SC 3110 , the Apex Court after referring to various earlier decisions held that suppression of a material document would also amount to a fraud on the Court. The same view has been reiterated in Bhaurao Dagdu Paralkar Vs. State of Maharashtra & others, AIR 2005 SC 3330 . In R. Vishwanatha Pillai Vs. Stat