Public Interest Litigation (Note#1)

Note#1

The learned counsel would submit, it does not lie in the mouth of any of the learned counsels to contend that the High Court had no jurisdiction to initiate the proceedings. The learned counsel would further urge that only because a floodgate of litigation would be opened if a public interest litigation is entertained, the same itself cannot be a ground for holding that public interest litigation should be entertained. 

Pro bono publico constituted a significant state in the present day judicial system. They, however, provided the dockets with much greater responsibility for rendering the concept of justice available to the disadvantaged sections of the society. Public interest litigation has come to stay and its necessity cannot be overemphasized. The courts evolved a jurisprudence of compassion. Procedural propriety was to move over giving place to substantive concerns of the deprivation of rights. The rule of locus standi was diluted. The Court in place of disinterested and dispassionate adjudicator became active participant in the dispensation of justice. But with the passage of time, things started taking different shapes. The process was sometimes abused. Proceedings were initiated in the name of public interest litigation for ventilating private disputes. Some petitions were publicity oriented. A balance was, therefore, required to be struck. The Courts started exercising greater care and caution in the matter of exercise of jurisdiction of public interest litigation. The Court insisted on furnishing of security before granting injunction and imposing very heavy costs when a petition was found to be bogus. It took strict action when it was found that the motive to file a public interest litigation was oblique. The decisions rendered by this Court in different types of public interest litigations are varied.

There is, in recent years, a feeling which is not without any foundation that public interest litigation is now tending to become publicity interest litigation or private interest litigation and has a tendency to be counterproductive.

PIL is not a pill or a panacea for all wrongs. It was essentially meant to protect basic human rights of the weak and the disadvantaged and was a procedure which was innovated where a public-spirited person files a petition in effect on behalf of such persons who on account of poverty, helplessness or economic and social disabilities could not approach the court for relief. There, have been, in recent times, increasingly instances of abuse of PIL. Therefore, there is a need to re-emphasize the parameters within which PIL can be resorted to by a petitioner and entertained by the court. This aspect has come up for consideration before this Court and all we need to do is to recapitulate and re-emphasize the same. We do not intend to say that the dicta of this Court in Balco Employees Union (supra) contains the last words. But the same may be considered to be in the nature of guidelines for entertaining public interest litigation.

Incidentally, on administrative side of this Court, certain guidelines have been issued to be followed for entertaining Letters/ Petitions received by this Court as Public Interest Litigation. We do not intend to lay down any strict rule as to the scope and extent of Public Interest Litigation, as each case has to be judged on its own merits. Furthermore, different problems may have to be dealt with differently.

The case at hand does not fall in any of the aforementioned categories, where a PIL could be entertained. No reported decision has also been brought to our notice where a Public Interest Litigation was entertained in similar matter. We have also not come across any case so far where the functions required to be performed by statutory functionaries had been rendered redundant by a Court by issuing directions upon usurpation of statutory power. The right of a person belonging to a particular religious denominations may sometimes fall foul of Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India. Only whence the fundamental right of a person is infringed by the State an action in relation thereto may be justified. Any right other than the fundamental rights contained in Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India may either flow from a statute or from the customary laws. Indisputably a devotee will have a cause of action to initiate an action before the High Court when his right under statutory law is violated. He may also have a cause of action by reason of action or inaction on the part of the State or a statutory authority; an appropriate order is required to be passed or a direction is required to be issued by the High Court. In some cases, a person may feel aggrieved in his individual capacity, but the public at large may not. (790 words)