HC displeased with misuse of PILs by litigants and lawyers

Irked over instances of "misuse" of PILs by litigants and lawyers alike "to ventilate private grievances", the Delhi High Court today said it "will not tolerate" such practice.
Taking strong exception to advocates "facilitating" litigants to settle their personal scores, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said such practice puts the credibility of the legal profession and the respect enjoyed by the bar associations at stake.
"We are extremely saddened and pained by what is happening. Credibility of the (legal) profession is at stake, so is the respect enjoyed by the Bar. Do we need to issue practice directions because of what is happening in this court? We will not let PILs be misused to ventilate private grievances.

"We take strong exception to advocates getting into private disputes of individuals and facilitating ventilation of private grievances. We will not tolerate such practice by counsels. This is reprehensible," the bench said.
The strong observations by the court came during the hearing of two matters, one pertaining to unauthorised construction and the other regarding lack of fire clearance to a hotel-cum-mall in Dwarka area of southwest Delhi.
In the matter pertaining to the mall, the firm running it told the court that a namesake of the petitioner, Abhishek Sehrawat, had got a criminal cheating FIR registered against one of its directors.

The proceedings then took a dramatic turn after the bench was informed that one of the persons, a lawyer present in the court room, had the same name as the petitioner, and his law firm represented one Amit Kumar Rana who had filed a civil suit against the mall seeking the same relief as in the PIL.

While these facts were being brought to the attention of the bench, lawyer Abhishek Sehrawat, who was present in the court room, slipped out. His advocate and other court staff had to be sent to bring him back.
Denying that he was the petitioner, he accepted that Rana was his firm's client. He, however, had no answer to the court's query as to why he had slipped out of the court room.

Noting that the lawyer, Rana and the petitioner "are in collusion", the bench directed that all three be present in person before it on the next date of hearing on March 19.
The court also directed Sehrawat to ensure that the criminal complaint and civil suit against the mall are sorted out before the next date.
In the unauthorised construction matter, the bench was told that the petitioner, a lawyer, had filed the PIL alleging that a certain building in village Mandi in south Delhi was built illegally, even thougn he did not live in that area.
When the court asked him why he chose that specific area, the lawyer said "a source" had told him.

Displeased with the response, the court directed the lawyer to place on affidavit who his source is and on whose direction he was targeting a specific building in the village and listed the matter for March 1.