Delhi High Court: In a recent case, the the petitioners highlighted apprehensions that the death of late Chief Minister Kalikho Pul was a suicide. Before a Single Judge Bench, the petitioners pleaded the Court to direct the State of Arunachal Pardesh, its police, Delhi Police, West Bengal Police and the CBI to register an FIR. Sanjeev Sachdeva, J. observed that the petition had been signed by just one person i.e Mr A.C Philip, Advocate for the petitioners. Along with that there was only one affidavit by Ms Rohini. M. Amin, advocate (also a petitioner in the case). The affidavit stated that Ms Rohini is the authorised representative of only two petitioners including herself. The alleged document which was claimed to be the suicide note lacked any powerful evidence. The note had not been seen or read by any of the petitioners and thus they could not vouch for its existence.
Furthermore, the petition made very serious allegations merely based on a post which too was not seen by the petitioners and allegedly circulated on a WhatsApp group. It was not even stated int the petition as to how the petitioners formed reasonable belief that the evidence mentioned could be true or have any basis. Lastly, the Court decided that since the petitioners admittedly filed the petition without verifying any facts,the writ petition was dismissed with costs of Rs 25,000 on each petitioner. [National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Tranparency and Reforms v. Union of India, 2017 SCC OnLine Del 8564, decided on 22.05.2017]
