Full Text
HIGH COURT OF DELHI
Date of Decision: 10th April, 2026
MANDEEP SINGH SEHRAWAT & ORS. .....Petitioners
Through: Mr. Dharamraj Ohlan, Adv.
Through: Mr. Sanjay Kumar Pathak, SC, Ms. K.
Kaomudi Kiran Pathak, Mr. Sunil Kumar Jha, Mr. M. S. Akhtar, Ms. Joohu Kumari, Advs. for R1 & R2.
Mr. Vinay Kaushik, GP for R3.
Ms. Manika Tripathy, SC for DDA with Mr. Saksham Singh, Adv. for
DDA.
Mr. Akul Mehandru, Adv.
JUDGMENT
1. This hearing has been done through hybrid mode.
2. The present petition has been filed by six Petitioners, seeking inter alia setting aside of the public notice dated 31st July, 2025, as also the public notice dated 9th February, 2026 and its corrigendum dated 23rd February,
2026. The six Petitioners arrayed in the present petition as under:
1. Sh. Mandeep Singh Sehrawat S/o Sh Mahender Singh R/o House No D-21 Aashiana, Near chaupai road village Mahipalpur, South West Delhi New delhi-110037
2. Ashok Kumar S/o late Sh. Rohtash R/o h.no. 452, village Mahipalpur, Near chaupal chowk,
3. Yogesh Chander S/o late Shri Sujan
4. Sukhbir singh S/o late Shri Kanwar Singh
5. Naresh S/o late Sh. Nawal Singh R/o house no 452 village Mahipalpur
6. Manish Sehrawat S/o late Sh. Ravinder singh, R/o h.no. 75, khyali ram gali, Mahipalpur, South West Delhi, Delhi-110037
3. The said Petitioners have challenged the acquisition in respect of land comprising Khasra No.924 (4-16), 925 (4-16), 926/1 (4-12), Village Mahipalpur, New Delhi (hereinafter, ‘Acquired Land’).
4. The Notification for acquisition under section 4 of Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter, the ‘1894 Act’) was issued in respect of this acquired land way back on 23rd January, 1965, followed by a Declaration under Section 6 of the 1894 Act on 7th February, 1966.
5. The Award confirming the said acquisition was passed on 19th September, 1986, bearing Award no. 33/86-87.
6. The said acquisition came to be challenged before this Court in W.P.(C) 8706/2014, titled Sh. Mahender Singh & Ors. v. Union of India and Ors., which was allowed vide judgement dated 6th July, 2015. The acquisition was held to be lapsed under Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013 (hereinafter, ‘the 2013 Act’). The relevant portion of the said judgment dated 6th July, 2015 is set out below:
7. An SLP was filed against this judgment dated 6th July, 2015 which came to be considered by the Supreme Court in the batch of matters decided in Delhi Development Authority v. Tejpal and Others, (2024) 7 SCC 433, wherein the lead matter was SLP Civil No. 26697/19. The relevant M.A related to this case was bearing Diary No. 12596 of 2023 in Civil Appeal NO. 8631/2016.
8. As per DDA v. Tejpal (supra), the present acquisition proceedings fell in ‘List C-1’. In respect of cases falling in ‘List C-1’, the following directions were issued by the Supreme Court: “88.1. The time-limit for initiation of fresh acquisition proceedings in terms of the provisions contained in Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act is extended by a year starting from 1-8-2024 whereupon compensation to the affected landowners may be paid in accordance with law, failing which consequences, also as per law, shall follow;
88.2. The parties shall maintain status quo regarding possession, change of land use, and creation of thirdparty rights till fresh acquisition proceedings, as directed above, are completed;”
9. In terms of the above decision of the Supreme Court, fresh acquisition proceedings were to be initiated within one year from 1st August, 2024 and thereafter, compensation was to be paid to the affected landowners in accordance with law. Until the initiation of fresh acquisition proceedings, status quo was to be maintained with respect to the concerned land.
10. Pursuant to the judgment of the Supreme Court, in the present case, the LAC issued a public notice on 31st July, 2025. This notice was challenged by the Petitioners, along with several other land owners in W.P.(C) 14725/2025, titled Mandeep Singh Sehrawat & Ors. Vs. Govt. of Delhi & Ors.
11. In the said writ petition, the following persons were arrayed as Petitioners:
12. In the aforementioned petition being W.P.(C) 14725/2025, serious allegations were raised against the Petitioners, including the counsels representing them on the ground that signatures of some of the Petitioners, namely, Deepti Sehrawat and Saurabh Sehrawat were in fact, forged. The said allegations were contained in CM APPL. 73188/2025 filed in W.P.(C) 14725/2025, as under:
13. Pursuant to filing of this application, the said writ petition W.P.(C) 14725/2025 was dismissed as withdrawn on 5th February, 2026, in the following terms:
14. As is evident from the above order dated 5th February, 2026, no leave or liberty was sought by the Petitioners to file a fresh petition and the petition was simply dismissed as withdrawn.
15. The present petition has now been filed by some of the Petitioners, who had filed the earlier writ petition W.P.(C) 14725/2025, challenging the very same public notice dated 31st July, 2025 and the consequential public notice dated 9th February, 2026 and its corrigendum dated 23rd February, 2026. The prayer is in Writ Petition is as under:
16. In the opinion of this Court, the present Petition would not be maintainable, as the earlier writ petition W.P.(C) 14725/2025 was dismissed as withdrawn without any liberty to file afresh. The said previous writ petition was also filed challenging the public notice dated 31st July, 2025, and the same prayer has been made in the present petition as well, despite the Petitioner having been granted the liberty to raise the same challenge again. The remaining two notices that are challenged are consequential notices to the notice dated 31st July 2025.
17. The decision of the Supreme Court in Sarguja Transport Service v. State Transport Appellate Tribunal, M.P., Gwalior & Ors. [(1987) 1 SCC 5] is clear and categorical to this effect that when a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is dismissed as withdrawn without the Petitioner seeking and being granted the liberty to file afresh another petition, then a second petition filed by the same Petitioner, raising challenge to the same subject matter would not be permissible. The relevant portion of Sarguja Transport Service (supra) reads as under:
9. The point for consideration is whether a petitioner after withdrawing a writ petition filed by him in the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India without the permission to institute a fresh petition can file a fresh writ petition in the High Court under that article. On this point the decision in Daryao case [AIR 1961 SC 1457: (1962) 1 SCR 574] is of no assistance. But we are of the view that the principle underlying Rule 1 of Order XXIII of the Code should be extended in the interests of administration of justice to cases of withdrawal of writ petition also, not on the ground of res judicata but on the ground of public policy as explained above. It would also discourage the litigant from indulging in bench-hunting tactics. In any event there is no justifiable reason in such a case to permit a petitioner to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution once again. While the withdrawal of a writ petition filed in a High Court without permission to file a fresh writ petition may not bar other remedies like a suit or a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India since such withdrawal does not amount to res judicata, the remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution of India should be deemed to have been abandoned by the petitioner in respect of the cause of action relied on in the writ petition when he withdraws it without such permission. In the instant case the High Court was right in holding that a fresh writ petition was not maintainable before it in respect of the same subject-matter since the earlier writ petition had been withdrawn without permission to file a fresh petition. We, however, make it clear that whatever we have stated in this order may not be considered as being applicable to a writ petition involving the personal liberty of an individual in which the petitioner prays for the issue of a writ in the nature of habeas corpus or seeks to enforce the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution since such a case stands on a different footing altogether. We, however, leave this question open.”
18. The said decision of the Supreme Court in Sarguja Transport Service (supra) has since been reiterated and further strengthened by the Supreme Court in several decisions. In Upadhyay & Co. v. State of U.P. & Ors. [(1999) 1 SCC 81], the Supreme Court applied the rationale in Sarguja Transport Service (supra) to further hold that once an SLP filed against an order of the High Court has been withdrawn without obtaining from the Court, liberty to file an SLP again, a fresh SLP filed against the same impugned order would not be maintainable. The relevant portions of the decision of Supreme Court in Upadhyay & Co. (supra) reads as under:
13. The aforesaid ban for filing a fresh suit is based on public policy. This Court has made the said rule of public policy applicable to jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution (Sarguja Transport Service v. STAT [(1987) 1 SCC 5: 1987 SCC (Cri) 19] ). The reasoning for adopting it in writ jurisdiction is that very often it happens, when the petitioner or his counsel finds that the court is not likely to pass an order admitting the writ petition after it is heard for some time, that a request is made by the petitioner or his counsel to permit him to withdraw it without seeking permission to institute a fresh writ petition. A court which is unwilling to admit the petition would not ordinarily grant liberty to file a fresh petition while it may just agree to permit withdrawal of the petition. When once a writ petition filed in a High Court is withdrawn by the party concerned, he is precluded from filing an appeal against the order passed in the writ petition because he cannot be considered as a party aggrieved by the order passed by the High Court. If so, he cannot file a fresh petition for the same cause once again. The following observations of E.S. Venkataramiah, J. (as the learned Chief Justice then was) are to be quoted here: (SCC p. 12, para 9) “[W]e are of the view that the principle underlying Rule 1 of Order 23 of the Code should be extended in the interests of administration of justice to cases of withdrawal of writ petition also, not on the ground of res judicata but on the ground of public policy as explained above. It would also discourage the litigant from indulging in bench-hunting tactics. In any event there is no justifiable reason in such a case to permit a petitioner to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution once again. While the withdrawal of a writ petition filed in the High Court without permission to file a fresh writ petition may not bar other remedies like a suit or a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India since such withdrawal does not amount to res judicata, the remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution of India should be deemed to have been abandoned by the petitioner in respect of the cause of action relied on in the writ petition when he withdraws it without such permission.”
14. Of course their Lordships added that the above rule is not applicable to writ petitions involving personal liberty “since such a case stands on a different footing altogether”.
15. We have no doubt that the above rule of public policy, for the very same reasoning, should apply to special leave petitions filed under Article 136 of the Constitution also. Even otherwise, the order passed by the Division Bench of the High Court on 3-5-1998 does not warrant interference on merits as the learned Judges of the High Court have taken into account all the relevant facts and come to the correct conclusion.”
19. The Supreme Court in another decision titled M.J. Exporters Private Limited v. Union of India & Ors. [(2021) 13 SCC 543], while emphasising on the principles of ‘constructive res judicata’, held as under:
20. Furthermore, coming back to the facts of this case, this Court is also of the view that since the initiation of the acquisition proceedings in terms of the directions given in DDA v. Tejpal (supra) in respect of ‘List C-1’ has been done within a period of one year, thus, even on merits, the acquisition in the present case cannot be challenged.
21. The other Respondents i.e. Respondents No. 5 to 26, who are also coowners of the acquired land, submit that they have already filed claims for seeking fair compensation with respect to their acquisition under the 2013 Act.
22. Accordingly, this petition is also dismissed, with liberty granted to the Petitioners to seek fair compensation under the 2013 Act, in accordance with law.
23. In so far as the allegations of forgery are concerned, considering the fact that the forged affidavit was given to the Counsel by one Mr. Ashok Sehrawat, it appears that the Counsel is not at fault. The Court accepts the apology tendered by the ld. counsel and decides not to take any further action.
24. However, insofar as the present petition is concerned, the same is dismissed with Rs. l, 00,000/- as costs to be deposited by the Petitioners to the Delhi State Legal Services Authority in the following account- Name: Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee Bank: UCO Bank, Delhi High Court. A/c No.: 15530110008386 IFSC Code: UCBA0001553
25. The present petition, along with pending application(s), if any, is disposed of.
PRATHIBA M. SINGH JUDGE MADHU JAIN JUDGE APRIL 10, 2026/prg/ss