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On Tuesday, 12th January, The Allahabad High Court delivered its judgment in the matter of Arif Khan v. Branch Manager Mahindra Finance Sultanpur & Another (MISC. BENCH No. - 21265 of 2020). The Division Bench, comprising of Justice Alok Singh and Justice Karunesh Singh Pawar, had reserved their judgment on this matter on 15th December 2020. The petitioner had filed a writ of mandamus, against the Mahindra Finance Bank, seeking a certain customer ID and a certain amount, to be paid in easy installments, from the Bank. The Court had raised its doubts on the maintainability of this petition in November last year and had asked the petitioner to submit their response to this doubt.
Upon finding the submissions made by the petitioner, in response to the question on maintainability of this petition being less than satisfactory, the Court dismissed this petition. The Allahabad High Court reiterated the well-established principle that one cannot file a writ petition against a purely private body. The Court reached this conclusion because they observed that the petitioner neither claims Mahindra Finance Bank to be an authority or State, as defined by Article 12 of the Constitution of India nor do they claim that there has been a violation of any of the statutory provisions.
The Court also relied on the judgment made by the apex court of the country in Federal Bank Ltd. Vs. Sagar Thomas & Ors. The Supreme Court of India had opined that no private company, including all private banks, can be made subject to the writs issued under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, in normal circumstances. The Supreme Court of India had further elaborated that private companies or private banks can only be made subject to writ petitions in the case where it is absolutely necessary to force such an entity in order to enforce such obligations, statutory or otherwise.
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