New Delhi, Nov 20: The increasing number of Public Interest Litigations flooding the courts has "shocked" the Supreme Court, which is even more concerned by the fact that these were being entertained wasting "valuable judicial time" that could have been utilised to dispose of genuine matters. "Time has come to weed out the petitions which though titled as Public Interest Litigations, are in essence something else," a bench comprising Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat said in a recent judgement.
The bench expressed the concern while dismissing a PIL seeking commutation of a capital punishment to a condemned prisoner, Dhannajay Chatterjee, to life imprisonment on the ground that he is awaiting the gallows for a long time.
The condemned prisoner's plea for mercy had been rejected both by the Governor of West Bengal and President of India in 1994 after all the courts, including the Supreme Court, upheld the award of extreme punishment to him.
Dismissing the PIL filed by one Anup Pandey, Justice Pasayat, writing for the bench, said, "It is shocking to note that courts are flooded with large number of so called PILs where even a miniscule percentage can be legitimately be called as PILs.”
Bureau Report