Ajaib Singh and Another vs The State of Punjab and Others

Sanjay Kishan Kaul, C.J.—The petitioners have styled the present writ petition as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), aggrieved by alleged illegal encroachment by the occupants of the shops located in Old Grain Market under limits of the Municipal Council, Sunam. The petitioners obtained information under the Right to Information Act, but thereafter have not made any representation to the concerned authorities to take remedial action and have straightaway filed the PIL. We are, thus, of the view that petitioners ought to have first approached the concerned authorities with a representation and on failure to take action only could have approached the Court for redressal of the grievance.

We have also perused the Maintainability of Public Interest Litigation Rules, 2010, which have laid down the guidelines for entertaining a public interest petition. The nature of grievance set out in the petition does not fall within the defined Clauses of Para-6 where a PIL may be ordinarily entertained. In fact, the present nature of grievance, a cause on which many PILs are filed, is really in the nature of allegations against the municipal authorities for failure to perform their statutory duties and that should be the style of the petition.

The other aspect we want to emphasise is that the petitioner has to specifically disclose his credentials and his direct or indirect personal motive or interest involved in the case, if any, by way of an affidavit. The expression "specifically disclose his credentials" must, naturally, imply that he has to set forth what he does for his living, what public interest he has been espousing, the work done by him in that behalf, the particulars of any matter preferred by him as PIL earlier on which the Court has passed orders, etc. It cannot imply merely writing a sentence that a person is residing in the State, is public-spirited and is, thus, filing a PIL.

We, thus, direct that the Registry must ensure strict compliance with these rules and will return petitions styled as PIL with objection(s) unless these parameters are specified. In fact, there is a mandate on the Registry as per Clause-7 of the said Rules to verify the antecedents of the persons, Societies or Associations who invoke jurisdiction on the cause of public interest and, if they are not satisfied with the antecedents, to return the petition.

We are emphasising the aforesaid aspects because we find that we are inundated with PILs which truly are not PILs in the sense the concept is envisaged. They are either personal angst, someone reading a newspaper and annexing a copy of the newspaper making it a cause, making general allegations without any research about the subject or persons who have really no experience or exposure about the subject matter sought to be raised. These are, in fact, purely publicity interest litigations rather than PILs wasting judicial time. We, thus, dismiss the PIL with aforesaid directions to the Registry.