Separate causes of action bar joint writ filing; each petitioner must pay court fee as an individual proceeding.

Petitioners with separate and distinct grievances cannot join in one writ petition unless the right to relief arises from the same act or transaction and common questions of law or fact exist. Applying the Court-fees Act, the writ rules and Order I Rule 1 CPC, the Court found that each trader's complaint stemmed from different acts of obstruction or permit insistence by different officers at different places and times. The causes of action were therefore independent, there was no sufficient common factual matrix, and court fee had to be assessed separately for each petitioner as if individual writ petitions had been filed. The joint petitions were not permitted to proceed in their existing form, though amendment was allowed.

---

---

Issues: Whether several traders with separate and distinct causes of action could join in one writ petition and pay only one court fee, and whether each petitioner was liable to pay court fee as if separate writ petitions had been filed.

Analysis: The Court applied Section 6 of the Andhra Pradesh Court-fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1956, together with Rule 24 of the Rules to Regulate Proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and Order I, Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. It held that the relevant enquiry was whether the right to relief arose from the same act or transaction and whether common questions of law or fact arose. On the pleadings, each petitioner's grievance depended on a different act of obstruction or insistence on permits by different officers at different places and times. The causes of action were therefore separate and distinct, with no jural relationship among the petitioners and no common factual matrix sufficient to support a joint petition. The Court also followed the principle that where each petitioner has an independent cause of action, court fee must be assessed individually even if they are joined in one petition.

Conclusion: A single writ petition by all the petitioners was not maintainable, and each petitioner was liable to pay separate court fee as if filing an individual writ petition.

Final Conclusion: The joint writ petitions were not permitted to proceed in their existing form, but the petitioners were allowed to amend them by retaining only the first petitioner and to present separate writ petitions for the others before the learned single Judge.

Ratio Decidendi: Where petitioners assert independent grievances arising from distinct acts of different officers at different times and places, the petitions do not satisfy the common cause of action requirement for joint filing, and each petitioner must bear court fee on the footing of a separate proceeding.

---