GR L 16953; (August, 1962) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-16953; August 31, 1962
PABLO SARNILLO, CALIXTO CONCHA, BALDOMERO DIEZ, MAXIMO SABAR, ET AL., petitioners, vs. THE HON. MONTANO A. ORTIZ, as Judge of the Court of First Instance of Agusan and MARIANO C. ATEGA, respondent.
FACTS
The petitioners, Pablo Sarnillo and others, claimed to be bona fide occupants of a 129-hectare public land in Agusan. Their long-standing opposition to respondent Mariano C. Atega’s Sales Application No. 14768, initially overruled by the Director of Lands and the Department of Agriculture and later upheld by the President in 1951, was eventually granted on May 31, 1956. On that date, the Undersecretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources cancelled Atega’s sales award and ordered the land subdivided and sold to qualified occupants, including the petitioners.
In July 1956, Atega filed a petition for certiorari (Special Civil Case No. 34) in the Court of First Instance of Agusan against the Undersecretary and the Director of Lands, seeking to annul the May 31, 1956 order for alleged lack of jurisdiction or abuse of discretion. The petitioners, asserting a direct legal interest as the actual occupants who secured the favorable order, moved to intervene in October 1956. The respondent judge denied their motion, ruling they were not indispensable parties but had only a contingent interest.
ISSUE
Whether the writ of mandamus should be issued to compel the respondent judge to allow the petitioners to intervene in the certiorari proceedings.
RULING
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, rendering the issue of the petitioners’ right to intervene moot and academic. The legal logic is grounded in the supervening event that extinguished the very subject of the certiorari case in which they sought to intervene. While the petition for mandamus was pending, respondent Atega successfully appealed the Department’s May 31, 1956 order to the President. On July 31, 1958, the President, through the Executive Secretary, issued an order revoking the Undersecretary’s decision and reinstating Atega’s sales application.
Consequently, the Department order that Atega sought to annul via certiorari in the lower court had already been reversed by the Chief Executive in the lawful exercise of administrative review powers. This presidential action rendered the certiorari proceeding moot, as there was no longer a live controversy or an operative order to nullify. When the main case loses its justiciable character, any ancillary question, such as a party’s right to intervene, likewise becomes academic. The Court therefore found it unnecessary to adjudicate the propriety of the denial of the motion to intervene. No costs were awarded.