The Abuse of Public Interest Litigation

In one line

The courts opened the door to anybody acting for those who could not come, and then had to write rules to keep out everybody else.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: public interest litigation is liable to abuse by busybodies, by persons with private, political or oblique motives, and by litigants dressing a private dispute as a public cause; the courts have responded by verifying the credentials and motives of the petitioner, by requiring substantial public interest, by imposing exemplary costs, and by issuing guidelines to all courts in State of Uttaranchal v. Balwant Singh Chaufal.

The forms of abuse

The busybody. A person with no interest and no connection, litigating for publicity or from officiousness. Judges have coined a name for the class: what is filed as public interest litigation is in truth publicity interest litigation, and the abuse of the public interest jurisdiction by such a petitioner is what the later guidelines were written to stop.

The proxy. A petition financed by a rival, a defeated tenderer or a political opponent.

The private dispute in public clothes. A service grievance, a contractual claim or a property dispute pleaded as a public interest matter to escape limitation or an alternative remedy.

Blackmail litigation. A petition filed to obtain a stay and then settled.

The petition that harms those it claims to protect. A challenge to a project which the affected community wants.

The first judicial response

Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdhary, AIR 1993 SC 892.

Facts. An advocate who was a stranger to the criminal proceedings arising out of a defence procurement matter filed a revision petition seeking to have the proceedings quashed, describing it as public interest litigation. The question was whether a stranger could invoke the criminal jurisdiction in the name of the public interest.

Held. The petition was rejected. Public interest litigation is intended for the enforcement of the rights of persons who are unable to approach the court, and the relaxation of standing does not turn the courts into a forum for a busybody, a meddlesome interloper or a person with a personal, political or oblique motive. Only a person acting bona fide and having sufficient interest may be allowed to move the court, and the court must satisfy itself about the credentials and the motive of the petitioner.

Why it matters here. It supplies the vocabulary, and it makes the enquiry into the petitioner a threshold question rather than an afterthought.

The guidelines

State of Uttaranchal v. Balwant Singh Chaufal, AIR 2010 SC 2550.

Facts. A public interest petition challenged the appointment of an Advocate General on the ground that he was over the age of sixty-two. By the time the matter reached the Supreme Court the appointee had ceased to hold office, and the Court used the occasion to review the whole course of public interest litigation in India and the abuses that had grown around it.