Withdrawing a statutory revision as “not pressed” bars a later writ challenge to the same order, Allahabad High Court holds

The Meerut Development Authority cancelled the petitioner’s allotment of a commercial plot in 2013 for payment defaults.

After several rounds of litigation and statutory revisions, the State Government, exercising powers under Section 41(3) of the Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973, set aside the Authority’s order dated 26 November 2025 and directed it to recalculate the amount due and give the petitioner a final opportunity to pay.

The Authority’s order dated 23 May 2026 declined to give effect to that direction and proposed a fresh auction.

The petitioner challenged that order by statutory revision, but later withdrew the revision as “not pressed”; the revisional proceedings were concluded on that basis on 30 June 2026.

The petitioner then filed this writ petition, challenging the Authority’s order and seeking implementation of the State Government’s earlier direction.

Whether the petitioner’s withdrawal of its statutory revision as “not pressed” precluded it from challenging the same Authority order in a subsequent writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution

Section 41(3) of the Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973 empowers the State Government to examine the legality or propriety of an order passed by the Development Authority and to issue appropriate directions.

The Court applied the public-policy principle reflected in Order XXIII of the Code of Civil Procedure: a litigant who abandons or withdraws a proceeding on a particular cause of action cannot ordinarily relitigate that claim before another forum.

Relying on Sarguja Transport Service v. State Transport Appellate Tribunal, (1987) 1 SCC 5, Upadhyay & Co. v. State of U.P., (1999) 1 SCC 81, and Satheesh V.K. v. The Federal Bank Ltd., 2025 INSC 1140, the Court held that this principle may also apply where a statutory remedy is withdrawn and the litigant later seeks relief through a writ petition, particularly where the statutory forum had jurisdiction to decide the dispute.

The petitioner had invoked the State Government’s statutory revisional jurisdiction to challenge the Authority’s order dated 23 May 2026.

The Court noted that the revision was a competent remedy under Section 41(3), and that the petitioner withdrew it after notices had issued, rather than allowing the revisional forum to determine the alleged non-compliance with the State Government’s earlier direction.

Because the writ petition sought to challenge the same Authority order that had been directly challenged in the withdrawn revision, the Court treated the withdrawal as abandonment of that claim.

It therefore held that entertaining the writ petition would be inconsistent with the public-policy principle against pursuing the same claim successively before different forums.

The writ petition was dismissed, with no order as to costs; the petitioner was left at liberty to pursue any remedy available before the appropriate forum in accordance with law.