Statutory Authorities are Bound by Counsel’s Oral Concessions Made on Instructions and Recorded in Judgments

The respondents (original writ petitioners) had sought allotment of plots at market value.

During the writ proceedings, the Standing Counsel for the Board, acting "on instructions," provided specific pricing frameworks for each plot.

Based on this, the Court permitted the respondents to deposit these sums for the execution of sale deeds.

The respondents accepted and, in one instance, already deposited over ₹5 crore.

The Board subsequently filed these intra-court appeals, attempting to resile from the counsel’s concession, arguing that the Standing Counsel lacked authority to bypass public auction norms and that such sites must be sold via competitive bidding to maximize revenue.

Principle of judicial finality of records as established in State of Maharashtra v. Ramdas Shrinivas Nayak, which dictates that statements of fact regarding court proceedings recorded in a judgment are conclusive and cannot be contradicted by affidavits or oral evidence.

Rule from S. Thilagavathy v. State of T.N., holding that a party cannot prefer a writ appeal against an order passed with their consent.

Fiduciary and agency duties of advocates defined in Himalayan Coop Group Housing Society v. Balwan Singh, distinguished based on the specific recording of "instructions" in the impugned orders.

The Court reasoned that the Board’s conduct—specifically continuing to engage the same counsel for months after the first "unauthorized" concession was made—undermined its claim of lack of authority.

Applying the Ramdas Shrinivas Nayak precedent, the Court held that if a party believes a Judge wrongly recorded a concession, the only remedy is a review petition before that same Judge while the matter is fresh, not an appeal.

The Court observed that the Board failed to explicitly plead in its affidavits that instructions were withheld.

The Court refused to entertain new documents produced at the appellate stage to dispute the prior auction history, noting that appellate review is confined to the records available before the court below.

The High Court dismissed all appeals, affirming the orders of the learned Single Judges and directed the TNHB to execute sale deeds for the respondent who had already deposited the amount within four weeks, and granted the remaining respondents eight weeks to deposit their respective amounts, following which the Board must execute the sale deeds within six weeks.