Times
of India: Nagpur: Thursday, 28 August 2014.
With a view
to stop frivolous petitions that were used by the alleged blackmailers for
their vested interests, Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Wednesday asked an
RTI activist to deposit Rs 1 lakh to prove his bona fide before hearing his
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) about alleged financial irregularities in
Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC).
The court's
directives came just a couple of days after Supreme Court's refusal to
interfere with an Allahabad High Court order asking a persistent PIL litigant
to deposit Rs 25,000 with every case she filed. In 2005, even the Law
Commission recommended to the Centre to prevent frivolous litigation by
enacting a law on the lines of Madras Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act of
1949.
A division
bench of justices Vasanti Naik and Pukhraj Bora asked Mukesh Sahu's counsel
Srikant Khandalkar to complete formalities before adjourning the hearing by two
weeks. The judges made it clear that notice would be issued to respondents only
after the petitioner deposited the amount with the court registry. Recently,
while hearing a PIL against shops and establishments at Telangkhedi promenade,
the court had asked the shopkeepers, who had filed petitions against NIT for
same cause, to deposit Rs 23 lakh with its registry.
Citing an
audit report, Sahu had demanded a probe into alleged misuse of public money by
the NMC. He pointed out a string of irregularities by the civic officials while
awarding tenders or contracts between 2002 and 2011. Union secretary for rural
development, state secretary for General Administration Department (GAD), NMC
commissioner, and superintendent of anti-corruption department among others
were made respondents.
The Allahabad
High Court had asked petitioner Nutan Thakur, known for filing PILs on various
issues who had clocked a score of 86 petitions so far, to deposit money with
every new PIL she would be filing. The court made it clear that the deposited
amount would be refuned only if it found the PIL to be advocating a genuine
public cause.
Asserting
that no one can rush to the court with a PIL for every headline in newspapers,
the three-judge supreme court bench of chief justice RM Lodha and justices
Kurian Joseph and RF Nariman, stated that there was a need for a law in every
state to curtail vexatious and frivolous litigations. "In Maharashtra,
there is a Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act of 1971 that needs to be
enacted by every state," it said.
Hailing the
court's decision, Jan Manch president and noted lawyer Anil Kilor, who had
filed many PILs on behalf of his organization, said the move would act as a
deterrent for the petitioners who misused this tool to settle personal scores
or to blackmail. "The apex court had directed all high courts to ask
petitioners to deposit the money if it found something fishy in the case. If it
is proved that the case was filed for settling scores or for vested interests,
that deposit could be forfeited. It is only way to keep a check on frivolous
PILs," he said.
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