Allahabad High Court: The Division Bench of Pankaj Mithal and Rajeev Singh, JJ., found itself dealing with an unusual set of facts whereby a petition has been dismissed on the ground that the petitioner has not approached the Court with clean hands.
The set of circumstances in the present matter which led to the above-stated dismissal is that while adjudicating the present petition, an objection was raised by the counsel on behalf of the respondent, J.N. Mathur that the petition is not in the nature of public interest litigation as it is already in the public domain, even before it was presented or officially filed in the Court. The petition is available on a legal news website www.livelaw.in.
The petitioner, Krishan Kanhaiya Pal, who happens to be a practising lawyer, submits that he has filed the petition by abiding by the due procedure and he’s oblivious as to how the petition entered the public domain.
Counsel for the respondent retorted by stating that a breach in the chain of service of notice can be ruled out as the notice if this petition was sent to the Assistant Solicitor General, S.B. Pandey via e-mail. There is no possibility of the petition escaping from his office or system as he is currently recuperating from Covid-19 in the hospital and did not access his e-mail account at all.
Upon careful perusal of the facts, circumstance and arguments advanced, the Court observed that it is evident that the petitioner has invoked writ jurisdiction in order to gain unwarranted publicity in the garb of public interest. The petition was publicised on social media in the pre-litigation stage with a concealed motive of hogging undue limelight.
The legal position in similar cases has been well settled through a catena of judicial pronouncements the crux of which is that the basic purpose behind public interest litigation is to advance human rights and equality or raise issues of broad public concern. It helps the cause of the minority and disadvantaged class of society. The petitioner does not belong to the deprived class and is not seeking any basic human rights through this petition.
The Court has also passed some enlightening remarks which are reproduced below-
“It is pertinent to note that it is becoming a practice to gain publicity by filing petitions on sensitive issues so that it becomes a topic of discussion in public knowing fully well the ultimate result. Thus, publishing of any material proposed to be brought before the courts before it is actually filed is not a healthy practice rather an abuse of the process. It unnecessarily at times may prejudice the minds of the Judges. The media is supposed to play a responsible role in undertaking any such pre litigation publication and ought to avoid it.”
The petitioner has not approached the Court with clean intentions in public interest rather for the oblique purpose of seeking cheap popularity and publicity.
Thus, basis the reasons stated above, the Court dismissed the petition finding no reason to entertain the petition for the purposes of publicity alone.[Krishan Kanhaiya Pal v. Union of India, PIL Civil No. 15130 of 2020, decided on 18-09-2020]
Yashvardhan Shrivastav, Editorial Assistant has put this story together