Delhi HC: PIL should not be for personal gains

Taking tips from the CJI and with an aim to train young lawyers about the parameters of the Public Interest Litigations (PILs), Justice Kailash Gambhir of the Delhi High Court has initiated a series of lectures to teach the newcomers some tips of the legal profession.

Soon after taking over as the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice S H Kapadia announced that frivolous petitions in the garb of public interest would be disposed of with heavy costs.

Speaking at the lecture series ‘Learning to share’ organised at the Delhi High Court premises in association with the HC bar, Justice Vijender Jain who was the acting Chief Justice of this very court four years ago, said concept of PIL started in 1984 when the case of bonded labourers ‘Bandhua Mukti Morcha’ was taken up by the Supreme Court and the labourers were released from the clutches of their masters.

The Courts are there to translate the Constitution and enable the people to enjoy Article 21 of it which enshrines ‘Right to life’ to every citizen, Justice Jain said.

Right to life means Right to livelihood, Right to cleaner environment, cleaner air, Right to Education, Right to medical facilities and much more, he added.

‘If a judge , who is the Constitutional authority is confronted with a case of right to life and he sees any citizen deprived of this fundamental right and if action on part of the government is malafide and against the public interest, he can take action,’ Justice Jain said. Even a newspaper report can be treated as a PIL, he added.

Justice Jain said politicians are there to ensure their own vote banks and most of the officers though were not corrupt but were politically driven. ‘At this point of time the courts are the only saviours of public,’ Justice Jain said.

If courts would not have intervened on every issue which overlooked the Constitutional mandate, there would be a complete paralysis in the country, he said.

Justice Kailash Gambhir said the main aim of the PIL was to give justice to the poor and needy who do not have access to the legal remedy. Even in the era of King Jahangir, there was stress on ‘justice for all’. Citing an incident he said once a horse, who had a sore back, pulled the chain of Jahangir’s justice bell and immediately the owner of the horse was lashed so as to get the same sores.

‘Even though we (judges) see the sores, but are sometimes helpless to intervene,’ Justice Gambhir said. This situation has to be rectified, he said.

PIL was the only remedy available to a poor man to address his grievances, he added.

Senior lawyer and the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Ram Jethmalani said,’ PIL is for the poor, needy and downtrodden. The rich and politicians cannot use this tool for their personal gains.’ The legal practice, Mr Jethmalani said was mainly to ‘guard the public welfare’ and each lawyer should espouse this cause.

Urging the bar associations to come together to bring back billions of dollars stacked in Swiss banks to the country, Mr Jethmalani said that each one of us should support the PIL which asks the Government to make the correspondence between the Swiss authorities with regard to the names of those having tainted money stacked in the Swiss accounts open.

‘India is not a poor country as it is presented out to be,’ Mr Jethmalani said.

It is the corruption which was eating away our country, he said.

Some thieves and robbers have taken away the public money and stacked 15,000 billion dollars in foreign banks. If this money was brought back, each one of us can get a share of Rs 2.5 lakh each and the country will be debt-free for next 30 years, Mr Jethmalani said.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) and president of the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHBA) A S Chandhioke said bar associations were continuously facing the space constraint as there was a need for an academy for lawyers so that a continuing learning process could be carried on.

Mr D K Sharma, Secretary, DHBA and other members of the bar and many High Court judges were present during the lecture.

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