An NGO, which has filed as many as 64 PILs without any success over the years and its chief today came under sharp attack from the Supreme Court for wasting judicial time.
"You (chairperson) are wasting too much time of this court. You have initiated 64 proceedings before this court," a bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said.
The bench, which had issued show cause notice to Rajiv Daiya who is the chairman of NGO Suraz India Trust for filing these PILs, was not in a mood to grant more time to him to file his reply.
"One week is the time, which can be granted to you," the bench said, adding that it can close the matter right now if Daiya was willing to undertake in the court that he and his NGO will not file any plea now before it.
As Daiya refused to give any such undertaking, the bench fixed the plea for further hearing after a week.
The apex court, on March 27, had issued notice to the NGO for filing 64 petitions over the years under the garb of PIL and Daiya to show cause as to why he should be allowed to continue filing cases.
"In our list of 64, you have not got relief in a single matter. It is a misuse of the court. It has to be stopped," the bench had said.
It had handed over to him a compilation of the 64 petitions filed by him in the nature of writ petitions, review petitions to respond the notice in four weeks.
"We would request him to respond to the same so as to enable us whether he should be permitted to continue to file petitions in this court," it had ordered.
The bench, in its order, had specifically noted that Daiya, who is not a qualified advocate, was appearing on behalf of the NGO in the 64 matters and there are also some under objection by the registry which is of the view that they are not maintainable in the court.
It said either it will give a certificate to the NGO's head to file petitions in future or disallow him.
The apex court also dealt sternly with a few more PIL petitioners and warned them orally that they should desist from filing frivolous PILs based only on media reports.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
