Bombay High Court: writ jurisdiction cannot be used to resolve disputed facts between a developer and a society

Dismissing a writ petition by a developer and two individuals seeking renewal of a letter of intent and cancellation of a termination notice over a redevelopment project in Mumbai, the Bombay High Court (Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait M. Sethna) held that a developer cannot use the writ jurisdiction under Article 226 to conduct a full fact-finding exercise against a cooperative housing society when the underlying dispute is adversarial and riddled with disputed facts. The Bench held this falls outside the scope of a writ court's jurisdiction, which is not meant to re-appreciate contested evidence as a trial court would.

Applying the clean-hands doctrine from State of Bombay v. Morarji Cooverji, the Court held that a petitioner invoking writ jurisdiction must come with clean hands, disclose all material facts, and satisfy the court that granting relief will do justice and that justice lies on the petitioner's side; finding none of this made out, it refused relief. The Court also noted that an Arbitration Act Section 17 order rejecting interim relief, under challenge in a separate Section 37 appeal, could not be commented on since that was an independent statutory proceeding.