M J Antony: Private interest litigation galore

OUT OF COURT

Though the concept of public interest litigation (PIL) has revolutionised the justice delivery system, experience has shown that it needs correction all too often. The Supreme Court has recently come across some strange petitions masquerading as PILs.

Consider these: The Guwahati High Court stayed Shopper' Stop Ltd's initial public offer (IPO) and directed the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) not to allow it to do so, on a PIL moved by one north east investors' forum.

The Punjab and Haryana high courts ruled in a PIL that the appointment of a person as auction recorder of the market committee, Patran, was invalid. The Patna High Court dealt with the distribution of liquor licences for this year in a PIL filed by one of the 2.64 lakh aspirants.

Even the record of the Supreme Court is debatable. It admitted that a PIL recently demanding that the word "Sind" in the national anthem should be substituted by Kashmir. The court sought the opinion of the Attorney General and heard senior counsel for several hours on different days on the government's power to change words in Tagore's poem.

Ultimately, it dismissed the petition since it was "wholly devoid of any merit and the issue is puerile." The court realised that "the hue and cry raised does not amount to raising any constitutional issue or canvassing any fundamental right for the enforcement of which the jurisdiction of this court can be invoked."

It went further and punished the petitioner by imposing Rs 10,000 as cost on him. If the petition was so ridiculous, the question is, why did the court take so long to recognise it and gave it a priority.

Another PIL, which was pending in the Supreme Court since 1997, came to a tame end last month. The PIL wanted the Central and state governments to enforce the Dowry Prohibition Act.

After eight years of examination, the court said in its judgement: "Possibly a social revolution is needed to put an end to the menace (of dowry)."

Elementary. The only notable direction in the judgement is that the government should consider whether appropriate rules could be framed for compelling males seeking government employment to furnish information on whether they had taken dowry and if taken, whether the same had been made over to the wife as required by law.

The PIL was evolved by the Supreme Court judges in the early 1980s to help the illiterate, poor and oppressed people who cannot move the court themselves to assert their fundamental rights. In order to give meaning and force to the constitutional provisions, the court stated that the procedures should not stand in the way of the needy getting justice.

Any genuinely public-spirited person was allowed to move the court on behalf of the silent sufferers. The court also laid down strict conditions before accepting such petitions, which might be in the form of a post card or a telegram.

However, the movement has spread so wide that occasionally the court has had to rein in the PIL movement that tended to become an unruly horse.

In its recent judgement in Gurpal Singh vs State of Punjab, the Supreme Court said: "It is shocking to note that the courts are flooded with a large number of so-called PILs where even a minuscule percentage can legitimately be called as PILs. Though the parameters of PIL have been indicated by this court in a large number of cases, yet unmindful of the real intentions, the high courts are entertaining such petitions and wasting valuable judicial time."

The high courts entertain PIL even in service matters. In several petitions, official documents obtained without authority are annexed to the petitions. The court devotes several passages in which the high courts are cautioned against frivolous litigation in the name of PIL. If this advice is not taken seriously, the credibility of the movement, and even that of the judiciary, is likely to suffer.