Point of Law: A litigant, who attempts to pollute the stream of justice or who touches the pure fountain of justice with tainted hands, is not entitled to any relief, interim or final. Suppression of material facts from the court of law, is actually playing fraud with the court. The maxim supressio veri, expression faisi, i.e. suppression of the truth is equivalent to the expression of falsehood, gets attracted.

ORDER :

1. The present petition has been filed claiming to be in public interest praying for the following reliefs :

"(a) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus commanding/directing the respondents authority to recover the embezzled money from the respondents No.5 and 6.

(b) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus commanding/directing the respondents authority to take suitable action against the respondents No.5 and 6 due to their illegal act in the embezzlement of Government money granted for the development of Gram Panchayat Barai Shahpur, Tehsil and Block Sikandra Rao, District Hathras.

(c) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus commanding/directing the respondent No.2- District Magistrate, District Hathras to decide the representation dated 16.12.2019 filed by the petitioner (Annexure No.2 to the Public Litigation Petition)."

2. The learned counsel for the petitioner referred to an order passed by District Magistrate dated August 24, 2017 vide which a Committee was constituted to inquire into alleged embezzlement of funds by the Gram Pradhan. The grievance raised is that no action has been taken.

3. The learned counsel for respondent No.6 produced before us the order passed by this Court in Writ-C No.8261 of 2018, titled as Ram Prasad Rajouria v. State of U.P. and others filed by the petitioner earlier in which same relief was claimed. The aforesaid writ petition was dismissed on March 15, 2018. He submitted that the factum of filing of the aforesaid writ petition has not been disclosed by the petitioner in the present petition.

4. Finding himself to be in awkward situation, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that he may be permitted to withdraw the present petition.

5. The issue regarding approaching the Court by concealing the facts has been examined by Hon'ble the Supreme Court on number of occasions and it has been opined that the same is polluting the stream of justice.

6. In Abhyudya Sanstha Vs. Union of India, (2011) 6 SCC 145, Hon'ble the Supreme Court, while declining relief to the petitioners therein, who did not approach the court with clean hands, opined as under :-

"18. ... In our view, the appellants deserve to be non suited because they have not approached the Court with clean hands. The plea of inadvertent mistake put forward by the learned senior counsel for the appellants and their submission that the Court may take lenient view and order regularisation of the admissions already made sounds attractive but does not merit acceptance. Each of the appellants consciously made a statement that it had been granted recognition by the NCTE, which necessarily implies that recognition was granted in terms of Section 14 of the Act read with Regulations 7 and 8 of the 2007 Regulations. Those managing the affairs of the appellants do not belong to the category of innocent, illiterate/uneducated persons, who are not conversant with the relevant statutory provisions and the court process. The very fact that each of the appellants had submitted LPASW No. 82/2019 Page 7 application in terms of Regulation 7 and made itself available for inspection by the team constituted by WRC, Bhopal shows that they were fully aware of the fact that they can get recognition only after fulfilling the conditions specified in the Act and the Regulations and that WRC, Bhopal had not granted recognition to them. Notwithstanding this, they made bold statement that they had been granted recognition by the competent authority and thereby succeeded in persuading this Court to entertain the special leave petitions and pass interim orders. The minimum, which can be said about the appellants is that they have not approached the Court with clean hands and succeeded in polluting the stream of justice by making patently false statement. Therefore, they are not entitled to relief under Article 136 of the Constitution. This view finds support from plethora of precedents.

19. In Hari Narain v. Badri