HC slams ‘fancy litigation’: PIL can’t be misused as tool to settle personal score

Cuttack: Coming down heavily on the misuse of public interest litigation (PIL) once again, Orissa high court has dismissed a plea over an alleged village forest land in Kendrapada district as “a mere fancy litigation” and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on the petitioners.A division bench of Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice M S Raman said in the April 15 order that the case was a clear instance of “settling personal scores in the garb of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL)”.“The Public Interest Litigation cannot be permitted to be misused as a tool to settle the personal score but must have the element of the larger public interest,” the Judges said in the order, also cautioning against a growing trend of group petitions being filed in the name of villagers without demonstrating genuine public interest.The web copy of the order was released on Friday.Additional govt advocate Debashis Tripathy represented the state.The PIL, filed by five individuals claiming to be villagers, challenged the recording of the land — allegedly Gram Jungle (village forest) — in a private person’s name in 1998 under Mahakalpada tehsil. The court noted that despite proceedings initiated under the Odisha Survey and Settlement Act, 1958, there had been “complete silence” for decades until a recent agreement for sale brought the dispute to the fore.

Taking note of the sequence of events, the bench said the petitioners had already sought information under the Right to Information Act, 2005, and received replies from authorities. However, instead of pursuing remedies available under the statute, they approached the court through a PIL to “achieve the goal indirectly which cannot be achieved directly”.“This appears to us a mere fancy litigation than raising and/or flagging the cause concerning the public at large,” the Bench remarked, dismissing the petition and directing the petitioners to deposit a fine of Rs 10,000 before the member secretary, Odisha State Legal Services Authority (Juvenile Justice Fund), Cuttack, within a period of two weeks.Clarifying the legal position, the bench observed, “Whether the entry in the Record of Right … is correctly made or not can further be gone into under Section 32 of the said Act … which cannot be settled under the fiat of a Public Interest Litigation.” It added, “There is no hesitation in our mind that the petitioners wanted to correct the entry … taking recourse to a Public Interest Litigation when there is an express provision provided in the Odisha Survey and Settlement Act, 1958.

”The court directed that the amount be utilised for the welfare of children in need of care and protection, failing which it can be recovered in accordance with law.