PIL once filed & heard, cannot be withdrawn: SC

Supreme Court said , a Public Interest Litigation PIL, once filed & heard, cannot be withdrawn.

The observation came during a hearing on a lawyer’s plea that he was getting threats for filing a PIL seeking entry of girls and women in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple.

The court noted this when Naushad Ahmed Khan, President of Indian Young Lawyers’ Association, which has filed the PIL on Sabarimala issue, sought urgent hearing of the matter.

He said he has received 500 threatening phone calls in recent times and asked to take back the PIL.

What is Public Interest Litigation (PIL)?

Public-Interest Litigation is litigation for the protection of the public interest.
In Indian law, Article 32 of the Indian constitution contains a tool which directly joins the public with judiciary.

Article 32:

The Supreme Court shall have power to issue directions or orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, whichever may be appropriate, for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by this Part.

A PIL may be introduced in a court of law by the court itself (suo motu), rather than the aggrieved party or another third party.
For the exercise of the court’s jurisdiction, it is not necessary for the victim of the violation of his or her rights to personally approach the court.
In a PIL, the right to file suit is given to a member of the public by the courts through judicial activism.
The member of the public may be a non-governmental organization (NGO), an institution or an individual.
It was in the case of SP Gupta vs Union of India that the Supreme Court of India defined the term Public Interest Litigation in the Indian Context.
The 38th Chief Justice of India, S. H. Kapadia, has stated that substantial fines would be imposed on litigants filing frivolous PILs.
PIL has been successful in making official authorities accountable to NGOs.

Comments

India Tech Vision-2035

India Tech Vision-2035 India's technology thinktank under the ministry of science & technology has come out with `Technology Vision 2035' here at the ongoing Indian Science Congress, identifying the challenges ahead and how they can be dealt with through technological interventions while realising the dream of a developed India by the year 2035. The thinktank -Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) -in the vision document lists a technology roadmap for India, giving details of 12 sectors and technologies that in some cases exist but need to be deployed, some in the pilot stage that must be scaled up and technologies in R&D stage. It, in fact, talks about many future technologies, ranging from flying cars, real time translation software, personalised medicine, wearable devices, e-sensing (e-nose and e-tongue) to 100% recyclable materials among others which may be used in different areas to solve day-to-day problems “The trajectories del...

Budget basics: A glossary of terms used in Budget

Disinvestment Receipts The term refers to the money raised by the Government through disinvestment, or the sale of its equity stake in companies it owns. Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act The Act is an attempt to make the Government adhere to a phased plan to reduce fiscal deficit, which denotes an excess of expenditure over revenue. Dividend Distribution Tax This is a tax levied on companies that pay out dividends to its shareholders, i.e. share a portion of earnings with them. Venture Capital Funds These are funds that invest in startups, a financially riskier proposition than investing in established companies. Securities Transaction Tax It is a tax on all transactions done over the stock exchanges involving securities such as shares, derivatives, and equity-linked mutual funds. Wholesale Price Index (WPI) It is a measure of inflation, or price change, arrived at after regularly measuring the prices of a slew of wholesale goods. Consumer Price...

Inland Waterways in India

Here are some key points you need to know: The bill seeks to add 106 inland waterways to the existing six National Waterways on the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture and comments of several state governments The bill will also look after the renovation and maintenance of the existing waterways Out of the 106 new waterways, 18 have already been identified. These include five waterways each from Karnataka and Meghalaya, three each from Maharashtra and Kerala, one each from Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan The bill also aims to help the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) to develop the feasible stretches for Shipping and Navigation. Let us look at the six existing National Waterways in India: National Waterway 1 (NW1) The National Waterway No. 1 uses a 1,620-kilometre stretch of the Ganges River. It was declared a national waterway in the year 1986 and runs from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh to Haldia in West Bengal....

Civil Service Bytes

Search This Blog