The Supreme Court recently imposed costs of ₹5 lakh on the Central government for needlessly challenging a Meghalaya High Court order. (Union of India and ors v. Sudipta Lahiri)A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma noted in its order,"There was no occasion or justification for the Union of India to have challenged the said order by way of this Special Leave Petition. The present petitions are sheer abuse of the process of law. The petitioners are cautioned not to file such frivolous petitions in future."The amount of ₹5 lakh was directed to be deposited in the Armed Forces Battle Casualties Welfare Fund within two months.The Court was hearing an appeal against the High Court order which upheld a Central Administrative Tribunal verdict. The High Court had disposed of the matter after noting the Central government's submission that a similar plea had been rejected earlier in line with precedents.“Accordingly, the Special Leave Petitions are dismissed with costs for the reason that before the High Court counsel for the petitioner-Union of India submitted that the matter was squarely covered by a previous decision and, accordingly, the High Court had disposed of the matter on the statement of the counsel for Union of India,” the apex court recorded.Additional Solicitor General Vikramjeet Banerjee with Advocates Gurmeet Singh Makker, R Bala, Swati Ghildiyal, Shraddha Deshmukh, Bani Dkshit, Alka Agrawal, Nachiketa Joshi, PV Yogeshwaran and Baby Devi Bonia appeared for the Central government.Advocate Avijit Roy appeared for the respondent.
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