Anurupa Pal
Published on: March 1, 2022 at 14:48 IST
The Supreme Court Of India on Monday held that one of the measures to be adopted by constitutional courts to remove frivolous Public Interest litigation (PIL) petitions, is to be cautious when examining Locus Standi of the petitioner.
The three-Judge bench of Chief justice of India NV Ramana, Justices AS Bopanna, and Hima Kohli said that Public Interest Litigations being a summary jurisdiction, courts have limited powers to examine the bonafide of Parties.
“One of the measures this Court can adopt to ensure that Frivolous or Private Interests are not masqueraded as genuine claims is to be cautious when examining Locus Standi…..If the Court concludes that the litigation was initiated under the shadow of reasonable suspicion, then the Court may decline to entertain the claims on merits,“ the Judgment said.
The Court further noted that Public Interest Litigation is not a new concept and although the jurisprudence in this regard has matured, many claims filed in the courts are sometimes immature.”
Thousands of Frivolous Petitions are filed, Burdening the Docket of both this Court and the High Courts,” the Bench observed.
Thus, the institution of the Public Interest Litigation was nothing more than an abuse of the process in the present case which cannot be allowed in the facts, the court ruled.
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