Judgement SHETH, J. :- The petitioners are a firm manufacturing salt at their Salt Works at Bherai in Rajula Taluka of Amreli District. The former Junagadh State had granted them a lease of land on 5th December, 1943 for the purpose of manufacturing salt. On 31st January, 1969 the petitioners made an application to the State Government through the Collector of Amreli for obtaining lease in respect of 800 acres of land at Bherai in the vicinity of their Salt Works and deposited a sum of Rs. 200/- for the purpose as required by the Rules made in that behalf. On 7th February 1969 K.S. Hindocha of Messrs Hindocha Salt Works - respondent No. 3 to this petition - also made an application to the State Government on behalf of his firm for obtaining lease of the said land at Bherai for manufacturing salt. Chronologically the application made by K.S. Hindocha was subsequent to the application made by the petitioner. On 6th September, 1969 the Collector rejected the petitioners' application. On 15th September, 1969 the petitioners wrote in the matter to the Collector requesting him not to grant lease in respect of the said land to anyone else pending certain steps which they wanted to take in order to move the State Government in that behalf. On 19th December, 1969 the application made by Hindocha for obtaining lease in respect of the said land was granted. If was ordered that S. No. 603 admeasuring about 675 acres be leased out to M/s. Hindocha Salt Works for a period of twenty years on certain terms and conditions. 2. In this petition the petitioners ere challenging two orders made by the State Government by one of which their application for lease was rejected and by another of which the application of Hindocha for lease was granted. 3. Mr. Zaveri who appears for the respondent No. 3 has raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of this petition. He has contended that the petition is barred by res judicata and also by the doctrine of finality. He has invited our attention in that behalf to what the petitioners themselves have stated in paragraph 14 of the petition. This is what the petitioners have stated in that paragraph: Special Civil Application No. 342 of 1970 was filed by the petitioners against the respondents Nos. He has invited our attention in that behalf to what the petitioners themselves have stated in paragraph 14 of the petition. This is what the petitioners have stated in that paragraph: Special Civil Application No. 342 of 1970 was filed by the petitioners against the respondents Nos. 1 and 3 only in which they challenged the aforesaid two orders made by the State Government. The respondent No. 2 to this petition - the Collector of Amreli - was not a party to that petition. That petition was rejected summarily on 18th March, 1970 by Mr. Justice Divan. Against that order Letters Patent Appeal No. 29 of 1970 was filed by the petitioners. When the said appeal came up for hearing before the learned Chief Justice and Mr. Justice P.D. Desai on 31st March, 1970 it was allowed to be withdrawn on the application of the petitioner. Mr. Zaveri contends that since the petitioners had already challenged the impugned orders in the said petition and since the said petition was finally disposed of by this Court, it is not open to the petitioners to file a fresh petition and challenge the impugned order again. 4. There is no dispute before us that the parties to this petition were the parties to Special Civil Application No. 342 of 1970 except the Collector of Amreli who is the respondent No. 2 to this petition and who was not a party to the earlier petition. It is also not in dispute before us that the contentions raised and the cause of action stated in the earlier petition are the contentions raised and the cause of action stated in the present petition. It is also not in dispute before us that the reliefs which the petitioners prayed for in the earlier petition are the reliefs which have been prayed for in this petition. There are only two points of difference between the earlier petition and this petition. To the earlier petition the Collector of Amreli was not a party. He is a party to the present petition. In the earlier petition vires of Rule 42 of the Bombay Land Revenue Rules were not challenged. They are challenged in this petition. Except these two points of difference the present petition is exactly identical to the earlier petition. The earlier petition was summarily rejected on 18th March, 1970 by Mr. Justice Divan. In the earlier petition vires of Rule 42 of the Bombay Land Revenue Rules were not challenged. They are challenged in this petition. Except these two points of difference the present petition is exactly identical to the earlier petition. The earlier petition was summarily rejected on 18th March, 1970 by Mr. Justice Divan. The order of rejection recorded in that petition appears to have been made on the merits of the case. That order finally concluded the proceedings in that Special Civil Application. It could have been reopened only either upon a review application or upon an appeal. Letters Patent Appeal No. 29 of 1970 was filed by the petitioners against the aforesaid order recorded in the earlier Writ Petition. The following is the order which was passed on that appeal on 31st March, 1970. "Since some of the contentions sought to be raised in the appeal are not taken in the petition. Mr. D.U. Shah withdraws this appeal as he wants to file a fresh petition". The order in terms states that it was the appeal which was allowed to be withdrawn. The withdrawal of the appeal left the order of summary rejection recorded by Mr. Justice Divan in the earlier Special Civil Application untouched and undisturbed. It became final and conclusive. The order recorded in the Letters Patent Appeal also states that the appeal was allowed to be withdrawn because the petitioners wanted to file a fresh petition. The filing of a fresh petition must necessarily be subject to its maintainability. If the petitioners were allowed to withdraw the petition (and not the appeal) with liberty to file a fresh petition, the position would have been entirely different. In that case, the petition was not allowed to be withdrawn and it could not have been allowed to be withdrawn without issuing notice to the respondents in whose favour a final order had been recorded by Mr. Justice Divan in the Special Civil Application though he had done it in their absence. Since the Letters Patent Appeal was allowed to be withdrawn at the admission stage, no notice was issued to the respondents and, therefore, fine earlier petition could not be allowed to be withdrawn because the final order recorded thereon could not be set at naught without hearing the parties in whose favour it was recorded. 5. Mr. Since the Letters Patent Appeal was allowed to be withdrawn at the admission stage, no notice was issued to the respondents and, therefore, fine earlier petition could not be allowed to be withdrawn because the final order recorded thereon could not be set at naught without hearing the parties in whose favour it was recorded. 5. Mr. Zaveri has contended that the final order of summary rejection recorded in the earlier petition and the withdrawal of the Letters Patent Appeal filed against that order operate as res judicata and bar the present petition. The order made by Mr. Justice Divan is really not a speaking order. It does not state which grounds appealed to him and which did not appeal to him. However, it cannot be gainsaid that it is an order on merits. Mr. D. U. Shah has contended before us that such an order of summary rejection does not operate as res judicata and has relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in Daryao v. State of U. P., AIR 1961 SC 1457 . In that case, writ petitions under Art. 226 in the first instance were filed in the High Court challenging certain orders. They were dismissed. Thereupon fresh writ petitions were filed in the Supreme Court under Art. 32 and the contention which was raised was that the writ petitions filed in the Supreme Court under Article 32 were barred by res judicata in view of the final orders passed in the writ petitions filed in the High Court Having examined this contention the Supreme Court has laid down several propositions. The position which obtains where a case under Art. 226 has been decided by the High Court after contest and by a judgment and where a fresh Writ Petition on the same cause of action is filed in the Supreme Court under Article 32 thereafter has been stated in the following terms. "We hold that if a writ petition filed by a party under Art. 226 is considered on the merits as a contested matter and is dismissed the decision thus pronounced would continue to bind the parties unless it is otherwise modified or reversed by appeal or other appropriate proceedings permissible under the Constitution. "We hold that if a writ petition filed by a party under Art. 226 is considered on the merits as a contested matter and is dismissed the decision thus pronounced would continue to bind the parties unless it is otherwise modified or reversed by appeal or other appropriate proceedings permissible under the Constitution. It would not be open to a party to ignore the said judgment and move this Court under Art 32 by an original petition made on the same facts and for obtaining the same or similar orders or writs". In cases where a petition under Art. 226 has been dismissed not on merits but because of the laches on the part of a party or because a party has alternative remedy the position which obtains has been stated by the Supreme Court in the following terms :- 'If the petition filed in the High Court under Art. 226 is dismissed not on the merits but because of the laches of the party applying for the writ or because it is held that the party had an alternative remedy available to it, then the dismissal of the writ petition would not constitute a bar to a subsequent petition under Art. 32 except in cases where and if the facts thus found by the High Court may themselves be relevant even under Art. 32." Discussing the operation of the bar of res judicata in cases where a writ petition has been dismissed in limine this is what the Supreme Court has stated in the aforesaid decision. "If a writ petition is dismissed in limine and an order is pronounced in that behalf, whether or not the dismissal would constitute a bar would depend upon the nature of the order. If the order is on the merits it would be a bar; if the order shows that the dismissal was for the reason that the petitioner was guilty of laches or that he had an alternative remedy it would not be a bar, except in cases which we have already indicated. If the petition is dismissed in limine without passing a speaking order then such dismissal cannot be treated as creating a bar of res judicata. If the petition is dismissed in limine without passing a speaking order then such dismissal cannot be treated as creating a bar of res judicata. It is true that, prima facie, dismissal in limine even without passing a speaking order in that behalf may strongly suggest that the Court took the view that there was no substance in the petition at all; but in the absence of a speaking order it would not be easy to decide what factors weighed in the mind of the Court and that makes it difficult and unsafe to hold that such a summary dismissal is a dismissal on merits and as such constitutes a bar of res judicata against a similar petition filed under Art. 32". Discussing the operation of the bar of res judicata in cases where the petitions under Art. 226 have been withdrawn this is what the Supreme Court has stated in the aforesaid decision. "If the petition is dismissed as withdrawn it cannot be a bar to a subsequent petition under Art. 32 because in such a case there has been no decision on the merits by the Court". It has been made clear in that decision that the conclusions recorded therein are confined only to the point of res judicata and to no other point. In case of petitions under Art. 226 which has been dismissed on merits in limine the Supreme Court appears to be taking the view that such orders do not create a bar of res judicata against fresh petitions on the same cause of action under Art. 32 where the orders of summary dismissal are not speaking orders. In the instant case, the order of summary dismissal recorded by Mr. Justice Divan is not a speaking order. Mr. Zaveri has, however, made an attempt to compare the contentions raised by the petitioners in their earlier petition and the Memorandum of appeal with the contentions raised in the present petition and then tried to submit that the petitioners in the present petition have raised the same contentions which they had raised in the earlier petition except one relating to the vires of Rule 42 of the Bombay Land Revenue Rules. We do not propose to take the course which Mr. We do not propose to take the course which Mr. Zaveri has asked us to take because, in our opinion, what may be good as between a petition under Art. 226 and a petition under Article 32 on the same cause of action may not necessarily be good in case of subsequent petition on the same cause of action under Art. 226. 6. We are looking at the question from a slightly different angle. The order of summary dismissal recorded by Mr. Justice Divan in the earlier petition is an order of this Court. So far as that petition is concerned, it has become final and conclusive consequent upon the withdrawal of the Letters Patent Appeal. The question, therefore, which arises for our consideration is this : Can we revise that order in an independent proceeding instituted for obtaining the same reliefs on the same cause of action? Can we entertain this petition as an independent proceeding in the nature of an appeal against the said order of Mr. Justice Divan? In our opinion, we cannot do so. The petitioners by their earlier petition invoked the original jurisdiction of this Court under Art. 226 for obtaining certain reliefs on a certain cause of action. In our opinion, it is not open to them to invoke the same jurisdiction for obtaining the same reliefs on the same cause of action again after their earlier petition was summarily dismissed on merits. We are a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction. The present petition has come up before us only because the vires of Rule 42 of the Bombay Land Revenue Rules have been challenged. If that challenge was not made by the petitioners and if this petition was filed raising all other contentions, this petition would have gone to a learned Single Judge of this Court and we are quite sure, in view of the summary dismissal of the earlier petition, this petition would have been dismissed by a single Judge. Merely because the question as to the vires of Rule 42 has been raised, it cannot be used by the petitioners as a spring-board to take a jump to reagitate the entire controversy in this Court. If this petition had been placed before Mr. Justice Divan for admission, we are quite sure, having dismissed the earlier petition he would have dismissed this petition as well. If this petition had been placed before Mr. Justice Divan for admission, we are quite sure, having dismissed the earlier petition he would have dismissed this petition as well. In other words, there is some finality which attaches to the orders of the Court whether they are orders of summary dismissal or whether they are orders recorded after contest. In Shankar Ramchandra Abhyankar v. Krishnaji Dattatraya Bapat, AIR 1970 SC 1 the Supreme Court was dealing with a case where a party had invoked the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court against an order of the Appellate Court under the Bombay Rent Act. Having failed in those proceedings he instituted another proceedings in the High Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution. Dealing with the maintainability of the second set of proceedings this is what the Supreme Court has stated in paragraph 8 of its judgment : "If there are two modes of invoking the jurisdiction of the High Court and one of those modes has been chosen and exhausted it would not be a proper and sound exercise of discretion to grant relief in the other set of proceedings in respect of the same order of the Subordinate Court. The refusal to grant relief in such circumstances would be in consonance with the anxiety of the Court to prevent abuse of process as also to respect and accord finality to its own decisions". The doctrine of finality attaches to the decisions of this Court. What has been finally decided by Mr. Justice Divan cannot be reopened by us in an independent proceeding instituted for obtaining the same reliefs on the same cause of action. To do so would amount to an abuse of process. If the doctrine of finality applies to proceedings instituted under different provisions of law, as it was in the aforesaid case before the Supreme Court, it applies with greater force to proceedings instituted one after another under the same provision of law, as in the present case. Even in case of interlocutory orders a fresh order cannot be passed except on proof of new facts or new situations. That is the view expressed by the Supreme Court in Arjun Singh v. Mohindra Kumar, AIR 1964 SC 993 . Even in case of interlocutory orders a fresh order cannot be passed except on proof of new facts or new situations. That is the view expressed by the Supreme Court in Arjun Singh v. Mohindra Kumar, AIR 1964 SC 993 . If in case of interlocutory proceedings except on new facts or new situations the order recorded earlier cannot be called in question, it is much more so in case of final orders passed in proceedings under Art. 226. 7. So far as the question relating to vires of Rule 42 of the Bombay Land Revenue Rules is concerned, it is a new plea which the petitioners have raised in the present petition. Mr. Shah has, however, neither argued it nor pressed it for our decision. Therefore, basically and fundamentally the present petition is the same as the earlier petition. The absence of the Collector before the Court in the earlier writ petition and his presence in the present petition do not make any difference whatsoever because, on their own showing, the impugned orders have been made by the State Government. In order to challenge them it was the State Government which was a necessary party to the earlier proceedings and it was made a party-respondent to that petition. In the present petition the State Government is a necessary party and it has been made a party respondent, though the petitioners out of abundant caution have joined the Collector as a party-respondent. In view of these circumstances, the absence of the Collector in the earlier proceedings and his presence in these proceedings do not make any difference whatsoever, so far as the application of the doctrine of finality is concerned. 8. In our opinion, therefore, since the controversy between the parties has finally concluded in the earlier writ petition, it is not open to the petitioners to file a fresh writ petition and to reagitate the same questions. It is not open to a Court of law to make two contradictory final orders in respect of the same subject-matter. If we decide this petition on merits and allow it, we would be recording an order contradictory to the final order recorded by Mr. Justice Divan in the earlier writ petition. While exercising the same jurisdiction in respect of the same subject-matter between the same parties we cannot record two contradictory orders. If we decide this petition on merits and allow it, we would be recording an order contradictory to the final order recorded by Mr. Justice Divan in the earlier writ petition. While exercising the same jurisdiction in respect of the same subject-matter between the same parties we cannot record two contradictory orders. The doctrine of finality, in our opinion, must apply for certain other reasons also. Indisputably it is open to a High Court to record an order of summary dismissal in a writ petition. If such an order is not final between the parties, a party which fails to get his petition admitted will go on filing petitions after petitions agitating the same controversy until the High Court records either a speaking order or a judgment. This, in our opinion, will lead to an intolerable situation. It will reduce the process of law to mockery. If such a situation is allowed to develop, the only choice which the High Court will have to make in petitions under Art. 226 is either to record a speaking order if It wants to dismiss a petition summarily for want of merits or to admit it and decide it by a judgment even though it may have no merits. 9. For the aforesaid reasons, we are of the opinion that the present petition is not maintainable and must be dismissed in limine. Merely because it has been admitted and Rule has been issued to the respondents it does not make any difference whatsoever so far as the maintainability of this petition is concerned. The petition, therefore, fails. Rule is discharged. In the circumstances of the case there shall be no order as to costs.