Researching and Drafting a Public Interest Petition

In one line

Researching a public interest petition means proving four things before you draft: that the facts are true, that a legal duty has been broken, that the person bringing it may bring it, and that no court is already dealing with it.

In exam wording: research for public interest litigation consists in the establishment of the factual foundation by documentary and official sources, the identification of the constitutional or statutory duty breached, the verification of the petitioner's standing and bona fides, and the ascertainment of prior or parallel proceedings, before the petition under Article 32 or Article 226 is drawn.

Why this is a research problem and not a drafting problem

In an ordinary suit the plaintiff knows the facts. He was there. He has the contract, the notice, the receipt.

In a public interest petition the petitioner was not there. He read about it, or was told, or noticed a pattern. The people who know the facts are the ones who cannot come to court. So the whole difficulty of the exercise sits in the first stage, and everything else follows from it.

And since Balwant Singh Chaufal, chapter 730, this is not merely good practice. Direction 3 requires the court to prima facie verify the credentials of the petitioner, direction 4 to be prima facie satisfied regarding the correctness of the contents of the petition, and direction 5 to be fully satisfied that substantial public interest is involved. A petition that cannot survive those three questions at the threshold will not be entertained, however serious the grievance behind it.

The five stages

Stage 1: state the wrong in one sentence

Before any research, write the wrong as a single sentence naming who is affected, what is being done or not done, and by whom.

• Weak: "There is a problem with sanitation in municipal schools."
• Strong: "Children in the 41 municipal schools of X ward have had no functioning toilets since June 2025 because the municipal corporation has not renewed the cleaning contract."

The strong version can be researched. Each of its three parts is checkable, and each will need a document. The weak version cannot be researched at all, because nothing in it is capable of being proved or disproved.

Stage 2: establish the facts

A newspaper report is a starting point, not a fact. It tells you where to look. A petition annexing only press clippings invites the court to ask direction 4's question and get no answer.

Sources that carry weight, in roughly descending order:

1. The public authority's own records: sanction orders, tender documents, inspection reports, budget allocations and utilisation, minutes. These are the best evidence there is, because the respondent cannot dispute its own file.
2. Statutory returns and published data: audit reports, annual reports, data the authority is required by law to publish.
3. Reports of statutory or constitutional bodies: the Comptroller and Auditor General, a Human Rights Commission, a Law Commission.
4. Affidavits of the persons affected, or of those who work with them. First-hand, and the only source that speaks to conditions rather than paperwork.
5. Photographs, video and site records, with the date and place established.
6. Press reports, as corroboration and as evidence that the matter is in the public domain.