Public Interest Litigation and Judicial Review
Chapter Forty-Five
Syllabus topic 3, "Jurisdiction"
Pages 137 to 139 of 430
In one line
Public interest litigation is a case brought by somebody who has suffered nothing, on behalf of people who cannot come to court.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: public interest litigation is litigation initiated in a court of law for the protection of the public interest or of the rights of a class of persons who by reason of poverty, disability or a socially or economically disadvantaged position are unable to approach the court themselves; it rests on a relaxation of the rule of locus standi and on a relaxation of procedure, and is brought under Article 32 or Article 226.
MU's question
The University sets this as a short note on three papers, and on the most recent paper as a lettered head coupled with locus standi. The answer needs its origin, what it changed, an example or two, and its limits, which are in [The Abuse of Public Interest Litigation].
Why it began
Two facts about India in the 1970s. The Constitution gave rights to everybody, and the machinery to enforce them was available in practice only to people who could pay for it. And the courts had emerged from the Emergency needing to re-establish their standing. Public interest litigation is the answer the Court gave to the first problem, and it also served the second.
What was relaxed
Standing. S.P. Gupta v. President of India, AIR 1982 SC 149, worked in [Locus Standi: Who May Ask the Court to Review], allows any member of the public acting bona fide to move the court for a person or a determinate class unable to approach it.
Procedure. A letter or a postcard may be treated as a petition, which is called epistolary jurisdiction; the Court may appoint commissioners to gather facts; and it may give continuing directions instead of a single final order. The authority is Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 802.
Facts. An organisation working against bonded labour wrote to the Supreme Court about the conditions of workmen in stone quarries in Faridabad, alleging bonded labour and inhuman conditions. The letter was treated as a petition under Article 32. The respondents objected that the Court could not conduct a fact-finding enquiry and that a letter was not a petition.
Held. Article 32 does not confine the Supreme Court to any particular form of proceeding, and it may adopt whatever procedure is appropriate, including appointing commissioners to gather facts. A person acting bona fide for a disadvantaged class may move the Court by letter. Detailed directions were given for the identification, release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers.
Why it matters here. It is the authority for both procedural devices, and it shows a court doing something no ordinary civil proceeding permits.
Public Interest Litigation and Judicial Review
The adversarial character. People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India, AIR 1982 SC 1473.
Facts. A civil liberties organisation wrote to a judge about the conditions of workmen on the construction projects for the Asian Games in Delhi, complaining of payment below the minimum wage, violation of labour laws and the employment of children. The letter was treated as a petition under Article 32.
Held. Public interest litigation is not adversarial litigation but a co-operative effort to secure the rights of the poor; it is brought not for the enforcement of the petitioner's own rights but for those of persons who cannot come to court. Non-payment of minimum wages and the employment of children in construction were violations of Articles 23 and 24 enforceable under Article 32, and the Court appointed persons to inspect and report.
Why it matters here. It supplies the definition of what the proceeding is, which an examiner expects in the first paragraph.
The remedy. Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, AIR 1979 SC 1360, ordered the release of undertrial prisoners who had been in custody longer than the maximum sentence for their offences, and held that a speedy trial is an essential ingredient of the reasonable, fair and just procedure required by Article 21 and that free legal services to a prisoner who cannot afford a lawyer are part of that procedure.
What public interest litigation did to judicial review
It changed who can complain. Standing moved from injury to bona fides.
It changed what the court does. From quashing an order to supervising a state of affairs over years.
It changed the source of facts. From pleadings and evidence to commissioners and reports.
It changed the remedy. From a writ to a set of continuing directions.
It changed the subject matter. Prisons, bonded labour, environment, food, education and the police entered the writ jurisdiction.
A worked example
A journalist writes a letter to the Chief Justice of a High Court enclosing photographs of a State-run children's home where the inmates are visibly malnourished and the building is unsafe.
The letter may be registered as a petition on Bandhua Mukti Morcha. The petitioner has standing under S.P. Gupta, because the inmates are children in State custody who cannot come to court. The Court may appoint a commissioner, often a district judge or a member of a legal services authority, to visit and report. The relief will not be a writ of certiorari but a series of directions about food, staffing, medical inspection and repair, with the matter kept on the board for compliance. That is public interest litigation, and no part of it fits the ordinary shape of a writ petition.
Public Interest Litigation and Judicial Review
What public interest litigation is NOT
It is not a licence for anybody to litigate anything. Janata Dal and Balwant Singh Chaufal.
It is not private interest litigation in disguise. A service dispute or a contractual claim dressed as a public cause is dismissed.
It is not a substitute for the ordinary remedies where the affected person can come to court himself.
It is not confined to Article 32. Article 226 is used far more, and is wider.
Quick revision
Litigation for a class that cannot come to court, resting on relaxed standing under S.P. Gupta and relaxed procedure under Bandhua Mukti Morcha. PUDR defines it as a co-operative and not an adversarial proceeding. Hussainara Khatoon shows the remedy, and gave the right to a speedy trial and to free legal aid under Article 21. It changed who complains, what the court does, where the facts come from, what the remedy looks like and what subjects reach the writ court. Its limits are Janata Dal and Balwant Singh Chaufal.
Test yourself
1. What are the two relaxations that make PIL possible? Standing, so that a bona fide member of the public may sue for a class that cannot come, and procedure, so that a letter may be a petition and the court may appoint commissioners.
2. How does PUDR describe the proceeding? As a co-operative or collaborative effort to secure the rights of the poor, rather than adversarial litigation.
3. Which case gave the right to a speedy trial and to free legal services? Hussainara Khatoon, as ingredients of the reasonable, fair and just procedure required by Article 21.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.