The Supreme Court said misuse of PILs has turned them into Private Interest Litigation, Publicity Interest Litigation, Paisa Interest Litigation and Political Interest Litigation. A nine-judge bench made the remark while hearing women’s discrimination cases including Sabarimala Temple.
While commenting on the misuse of PILs, the Supreme Court observed that Public Interest Litigation has effectively evolved into “Private Interest Litigation”, “Publicity Interest Litigation”, “Paisa Interest Litigation” and “Political Interest Litigation”.
The remark was made by a nine-judge Constitution bench while hearing petitions concerning discrimination against women at religious places, including the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, and the extent of religious freedom across different faiths.
The bench included Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices B V Nagarathna, M M Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B Varale, R Mahadevan, and Joymalya Bagchi.
The court questioned the objective of the Indian Young Lawyers Association behind its 2006 PIL challenging the ban on women between 10 and 50 years of age from entering the Sabarimala Temple.
Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Ravi Prakash Gupta argued that the PIL relied on four newspaper articles published in June 2006.
In response, the CJI remarked that the petition ought to have been dismissed at the outset.
The bench said,
“How does this article give the cause of action to file a PIL? It is easy to get articles written for the sake of filing PILs,”
Justice Nagarathna added,
“We have been entertaining PILs in High Courts and in the Supreme Court for the general public who need it. Not for articles being written in newspapers”
She said,
“Public Interest Litigation has now become Private Interest Litigation, Publicity Interest Litigation, Paisa Interest Litigation and Political Interest Litigation. All are called PILs, but we entertain only real and genuine PILs,”
She further noted that the CJI receives hundreds of letters every day and raised the question of whether they could all be converted into PILs.
The advocate also objected strongly to references made by three judges in their observations.
As the submissions continued, Justice Nagarathna remarked,
“Young Lawyers Association has no other business? They can’t work for the welfare of the bar or assist the bench for the legal system of this country?”
She said,
“Work for the bar, work for younger members and for their welfare. Those who are struggling in rural areas have difficulty coming to the cities to argue cases. They have brilliant minds. People have come from the villages with different minds. Rather than doing this time, in the Supreme Court,”
In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench, in a 4:1 majority decision, lifted a ban that had restricted women aged between 10 and 50 from entering the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple, holding that the long-standing Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional.
This case is linked to the landmark 2018 judgment where the Court allowed entry of women of all age groups into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, ending the earlier restriction on women of menstruating age.
Later, in 2019, while hearing review petitions, the Court did not give a final verdict but instead referred larger constitutional questions to a bigger bench.
These questions mainly deal with the balance between religious freedom under Articles 25 and 26 and the right to equality under Article 14.