Andhra HC (Pre-Telangana)
Thakur Bahadur Singh And Another vs Government Of Andhra Pradesh And Others on 23 September, 1998
Equivalent citations: 1998(6)ALD101, 1998(5)ALT567
ORDER
1. This case has astoundingly brought to the fore how a noble, laudable and public justice-oriented legal process, that is what we call "Public Interest Litigation (PIL)" which is essentially and initially meant to provide legal representation to previously unrepresented groups and citizens, can be misused and abused by mere meddlesome interlopers, without any element of public interest either in their heart or in mind, to have their own axe to grind against an individual for an oblique consideration and as a vexatious measure.
2. The facts are simple, and in brief, they are:
The third respondent was appointed as Village Administrative Officer (VAO) by the proceeding of the District Collector, Warrangal district dated 17-2-1992. The first petitioner submitted a representation dated 17-1-1994 to the Revenue Divisional Officer, Warrangal through his advocate, Sri T. Lakshma Reddy alleging that the third respondent secured the job by producing bogus HSC pass certificate. The second petitioner too submitted another representation dated 12-1-1994 to the Joint Collector, Warrangal through the samedvocate alleging to the same effect. Acting on the representations of the petitioners, the Revenue Divisional Officer issued charge memo dated 19-1-1994 to the third respondent. The third respondent submitted his reply on 9-2-1994. Not being satisfied with the reply of the third respondent, a regular departmental enquiry was conducted in terms of the Andhra Pradesh Village Administrative Officers Service Rules, 1990. The Revenue Divisional Officer found that the third respondent had prescribed educational qualifications for the post of VAO, but the HSC pass certificate produced by the third respondent is bogus. Therefore, the Revenue Divisional Officer removed the third respondent from service as a disciplinary measure. The third respondent's appeals to the District Collector and the Commissioner of Land Revenue were also dismissed. Then, the third respondent filed revision petition before the Government as provided under the Rules. The Government by the impugned order dated 21-1-1998 directed the District Collector, Warrangal District to reappoint the third respondent as VAO. The relevant portion of the Government order reads thus:
"The petitioner studied upto HSC in Maddur High School. For Village Administrative Officer appointment VIIth standard is enough. The petitioner is fully qualified for appointment as Village Administrative Officer. He prayed that the dismissal orders of the petitioner may be set aside and the petitioner be reinstated into service as Village Administrative Officer, Jangaon.
Government after careful consideration hereby direct the Collector, Warrangal that Sri Mohd. Nazeer Mohammed be reappointed as Village Administrative Officer, Jangaon, Warrangal district subject to verification of the genuineness of the TC produced by the petitioner by issuing fresh orders."
3. In pursuance of the order of the Government, the District Collector, Warrangal issued the proceeding dated 28-8-1998 reemploying the third respondent as VAO after verifying the certificates produced by him. Hence this PIL assailing the validity of the Government order dated 21-1-1998 and that of the proceeding of the District Collector, Warrangal dated 28-8-1998.
4. The petitioners claim to be pro bono public characters. Who are these two gentlemen? The first petitioner is ex-Sarpanch of Kallem Gram Panchayat whereas the second petitioner is a retired Central Government employee, and both of them now have taken to agriculture as their avocation. The petitioners themselves have certified about their noble act (PIL) in stating that they are "approaching mis Hon'bfe High Court with all bona fide and not for personal gain, private profit, political motivation or other oblique consideration". Nothing is disclosed in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition about the past of the petitioners as regards their public interest pursuits and credentials. This PIL seems to be their first attempt, let it be the last attempt also if the same baseness which prompted them to file this PIL is going to be the base for future PILs also. The Court should throttle any such attempt.
5. PIL has been a significant American development. The Council for Public Interest Law set up by the Ford Foundation in USA, in its report (1976) at pp.6-7 defined PIL thus:
"Public Interest Law is the name that has recently been given to efforts to provide legal representation to previously unrepresented groups and interests. Such efforts have been undertaken in recognition that the ordinary market place for legal services fails to provide such services to significant segments of the population and to significant interest. Such groups and interests include the poor, environmentalists, consumers, racial and ethnic minorities, and others.'' PIL programmes focus on policy-oriented cases, where a decision will affect large number of people or advance a major law reform objective. The consequences extend well beyond the particular litigants. PIL programmes are also designed to provide legal services to undeserved groups on matters of immediate concerns only to the parties directly involved. PIL in India has been used for various types of reliefs for under trial prisoners in jails, amelioration of the conditions of detention in protective homes for women, for medical check up of remand home inmates, prohibition of traffic in women and relief for their victims, for the release of bonded labour, enforcement of other labour laws, e.g., full and direct payment of wages to workers or prohibiting the employment of children in construction work, acquisition of cycle rickshaws by licensed rickshaw pullers, relief against custodial violence to women prisoners while in police lock-up, for environmental protection, for enforcement of gender equality and protection from sexual harassment and the like. Such litigation envisages that a Court action by an individual or a group of individuals belonging to a community or an indeterminate class against an administrative wrong, remotely or equally affecting the members of that community or class; and that a Court action by a public spirited citizen or a body devoted to the public cause, to vindicate the rights of individuals, groups or even the public at large, against administrative wrongs, though the person or body undertaking the Court action may not have suffered any injury. Manifold reasons are stated to justify PILs; it provides a means to redress public wrongs which remained unremedied under the traditional rules of locus standi; the individuals or groups suffering from adverse administrative action may not themselves be in a position to undertake litigation to vindicate their interests because of poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, fear and other forms of socio-economic disabilities. In S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, Bhagwati, J. has pointed out that individual rights and duties are giving place to meta-individual, collective, social rights and duties of classes or groups of persons.
6. Two main propositions concerning PILs surface from the decisions of the Apex Court. In S.P. Gupta 's case (supra) the Supreme Court has observed thus:
".....Whenever there is a public wrong or public injury caused by an act or omission of the State or a public authority which is contrary to the Constitution or the law, any member of the public acting bona fide and having sufficient interest can maintain an action for redressal of such public wrong or public injury."
Further, the Supreme Court in Peoples Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of Indid, has observed thus:
"...... where a person or class of personsto whom legal injury is caused or legal wrong is done is by reason of poverty, disability or socially or economically disadvantaged position not able to approach the Court for judicial redress, any member of the public acting bona fide and not of any extraneous motivation may move the Court for judicial redress of the legal injury or wrong suffered by such person or class of persons."
In both the propositions, an emphatic and terse caution is administered by the Supreme Court that the person approaching the Court for redressal of a public wrong or public injury has sufficient interest in the proceeding and is acting bona fide and not for personal gain or private profit or political motivation or other oblique considerations.
7. The Court, in this case, need not add much to the abundance of the principles governing PILs. Dealing with PILs, the Apex Court, this Court and other High Courts, in a catena of decisions, quite extensively dealt with the questions, such as, who can be considered to be a pro bono public character, what kinds of dispute could be brought before the Constitutional Courts in the form of PILs, the circumspection to be exercised by the Courts before entertaining a PIL, the dangerof entertaining applications filed under Article 226 of the Constitution with a facade or under a grab of PILs. To cite the few are the dxisions of the Apex Court inMC Mehta v. Union of India, ; Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, ; S.P. Anand.v. H.D. Deve Gowda, ; Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdary, ; Abdul Rehman Antulay and others v. R.S. Nayak and another, ; Kishan Patnaik v. State of Orissa, 1989 (1) SCALE 32; Sachidanand Pandey v. State of W.B,, 1987 (2) SCC 295 = AIR 1987 SC 1109; Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, ; State of Himachal Pradesh v. Parent of a Student Medical College, Simla and others, ; Bandhu Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, ; People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (supra); S.P. Gupta v. Union of India (supra); Fertilizer Corporation Kamgar Union, Sindri and others v. Union of India and others, ; Hussainarakhatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, ; Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration, ; M.H. Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra, ; and the decisions of this Court in K. Hamtmantha Rao v. Prl. Sub Judge, (DB); K. Prabhakar Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (DB); B. Kistaiah v. Government of India, (DB).
8. What can be gathered from these pronouncements can be stated briefly thus: Ordinarily, it is the person aggrieved and directly affected who must seek the relief himself unless disabled from doing so on account of socio-economic disabilities and only in such event the law permits someone else to seek the relief on his behalf. PIL is essentially to ensure observations of the provisions of the Constitution or the law which can be best achieved to advance the cause of community or disadvantaged groups and individuals or public interest by permitting any person, actingbona fide and having genuine interest in maintaining an action for judicial redress for public injury to put the judicial machinery in motion like actio popularis of Roman Law whereby citizen could bring such an action in respect of a public delict. Individual dispute cannot be subject-matter of a PIL and any attempt in that regard should be discouraged by the Court, and it is only in the clearest of cases of general affectation of right of the community at large or a wide variety of cross-section of people, the Court would extend its assistance by entertaining a PIL so as to avoid any social or general mischief having due regard to the concept of justice. However, only a person acting bona fide and having sufficient interest in the proceedings of PIL will alone have a locus standi and can approach the Court for the poor and needy, suffering from violation of their fundamental rights or other legal rights and to enforce public law duties against the administration. But a person for personal gain or private profit or political motive or any oblique consideration has no locus standi. Similarly, a vexatious petition under the colour or garb of PIL brought before the Court for vindicating any personal grievance, deserves rejection at the threshold. The Court should not allow its process to be abused by mere busybodies, meddlesome interlopers, wayfarers or officious interveners having absolutely no public interest in their mind or heart except for personal gain or private profit or political mileage either for themselves or as proxy of others or for any other extraneous motivation or collateral consideration or for gaining publicity.
9. If these principles are applied to the facts of this case, can it be said that the petitioners are pro bono public characters'? The answer should be emphatic 'No'. The third respondent is a VAO belonging to one of the lowermost cadres in the Revenue Department of the State Government A VAO is a ministerial official though he is magnanimously called officer, and he is one among several thousands belonging to that cadre. The post of VAO is neither substantivenor independent, and the incumbent of the post holds the post during the pleasure of the State. Secondly, it is not the requirement of law that an employer, whether public or private, should punish his employee as a mandatory legal obligation if he finds the employee guilty of certain misconduct. The employer may pardon the employee despite the establishment of the misconduct if the employer has the trust and reason to believe that the employee would not indulge in misconduct in future. No Court can compel an employer, public or private, to punish his employee. To punish or not to punish an employee in a disciplinary proceeding is the discretionary power vested in the employer, and that power is purely administrative in nature though that power has to be exercised judiciously against the delinquent employee. The primary objective of any disciplinary proceeding is to enforce discipline in the work-force and not to punish the delinquent. Outsiders have no say in the matter. It may be that where a person holds a substantive and independent public office without authority of law, a writ of quo warranto may be sought subject to the limitations attached to the issuance of that writ. That is not the situation obtaining in the instant case. The third respondent is a petty, a lowermost, bottom-level employee. If that is so, why these two gentlemen, the petitioners, who admittedly do not possess any background of a social activist credentials relentlessly fidge the path to sec that the third respondent is ousted from the office? What is the moving force behind the action of the petitioners? Is it prompted by public interest or personal interest orgrievance? The answer to "why?" need not detain the Court for long. The representation of the first petitioner dated 17-1-1994 given to the Revenue Divisional Officer, Warrangal speaks for itself. Para (2) of the representation reads:
"The above individual (the third respondent) is presently working at Jangaon Mandal engages himself in misleading and harassing people who visit the Jangaon and Lingala Ghanapoor mandal offices in connectionwith their requirement. The petitioner is one of such persons who has been subjected to an unending litigation in respect of his lands situated at Kallem village of Lingala Ghanapoor mandal.'' The first and the second petitioners arc the residents and agriculturists of Lingala Ghanapoor mandal and Jangaon mandal respectively, and the third respondent was serving in those places before and after his appointment as VAO, and the petitioners had grievances against the third respondent as set out in the representation of the first petitioners. It is not unreasonable to infer, in the facts and circumstances of this case that the petitioners wanted to settle a score with the third respondent for the alleged harassment meted out to them. Therefore, the petitioners cannot be treated as pro bono public characters.
10. Secondly, is there any public interest involved? Although the expression "public interest" is an elusive abstraction meaning general social welfare or regard for social good and predicating interest of the general public in matters where a regard for the social good is of the first moment, that expression in common parlance means an act beneficial to the general public. An action taken in public interest necessarily means an action taken for public purpose. A thing is said to be in public interest where it is or can be made to appear to be contributive to the general welfare of the community at large. What is that public interest which has received set-back by rcmploying the third respondent as VAO? Firstly, the case does not involve any breach of public law. The fact that the third respondent has studied upto HSC whereas the prescribed educational qualification for the post of VAO under the relevant service rules is only a study upto 7th standard is not in controversy. The gravamen of the charge is that the third respondent produced a bogus educational certificate to show that he lias passed HSC though that is not the requirement of law for appointment to the post of a VAOIt may be that the sheer act of the third respondent in producing such bogus certificate, if proved, may be treated as a blame-worthy conduct, and if the Government were to dismiss the revision petition of the third respondent on .that ground, and if the third respondent were to seek judicial review of such action of the Government under Article 226, the Court, perhaps, might not have interfered with such order of the Government because only the other day this Court in R. Fakruddin and others v. APSEB Hyderabad, thundered that it is of utmost importance in public employment that the persons who seek employment should not practice any form of fraud and that the fraudulent persons have no place in public employment; detection of fraud and punishing the guilty is a 'must' and imperative to uphold the sanctity of public employment. Such considerations on the part of the Court arc besides the point in the instant case. The relevant question that arises for consideration in the instant case is whether the action of the Government in ordering reemployment of the third respondent, an individual, as VAO could be subject-matter of judicial review in a PIL. Reemployment of the third respondent was ordered by the Government in exercise of the discretionary administrative power vested in it as the Revisional authority under the relevant service rules. Secondly, as pointed out supra even assuming that the petitioners have proved or capable of proving the alleged misconduct against the third respondent, the Court cannot compel the State Government to punish the third respondent. The power to impose a penalty on a delinquent in a disciplinary proceeding includes the power to condone the misconduct also unless a statute otherwise directs. Thirdly, by no stretch of imagination, it can be said that the action of the Government in ordering reemployment of the third respondent as VAO has impaired or violated public interest. Therefore, I hold that the instant case does not involve enforcement of any public right or interest.
11. Before concluding a word or two about the accountability of the petitioners in moving this application under Article 226 under the garb of PIL. The Court at the threshold of the hearing of the case for admission drew the attention of the learned Counsel for the petitioners that the instant case could not be treated as a bona fide PJL nor the petitioners be treated as pro bono public characters if the Court were to apply the tests and parameters laid down by the Division Benches of this Court in K. Hanumantha Rao v. Prl. Sub-Judge (supra); K. Prabhakar Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra); and B. Kistaiah v. Government of India (supra) but the learned Counsel brushed them aside without showing any inclination to appreciate those tests and parameters. On the other hand, the learned Counsel argued the case for almost an hour as if the Government committed an unpardonable Constitutional blasphemy in ordering reemployment of the third respondent as VAO, vociferating the same contention that the third respondent is guilty of producing the bogus HSC pass certificate, in varied vibronic forms with live voceder, despite the Court telling the learned Counsel intermittently that "the Court's time is neither your time nor my time; it is public time; there is no need to repeat the same factual submission several times, and I have understood the facts of the case and your contention". The following observations of the Division Bench of this Court - speaking through B. Sudershan Reddy, J. about the role of lawyers in B. Kistaiah v. Government of India (supra) are apposite:
" Lawyer plays a very crucial and important role in public interest litigation. His duty and responsibility to the Court in a Public Interest Litigation case is even greater in comparison to usual cases. The Lawyers repertoire and forensic skills and craftmanship are central to a purposeful use of Judicial processes as instruments of institutional reforms. An advocate is an integral part of administration of Justice. The legal fraternity and judiciary are the two sides of the same coin. The Court would not be wrong in expecting that everyadvocate would conduct himself in responsible manner and assist the Court properly in discharge of its legal and constitutional obligations. They do act, plead and advocate the cause of the clients but their duty to Court is much higher than that of serving their clients".
To these pertinent observations of the Hon'ble Bench, I can only add that every advocate is an arnicas curiae, a friend of the Court; his first loyalty is to the Court and not to his client. The Court's time is not meant for the satisfaction of the ego of a Judge who presides Over the Court that he knows the whole law correctly and there cannot be a second opinion on the point addressed to the Court, nor to satisfy the Counsel himself who appears for a party that he could putforth any plea or point irrespective of its tenability in the legal premise, nor to please a party sitting behind his Counsel that his Counsel did argue the case on his behalf marvelously and to his satisfaction. Adjudicatory deliberations in a Law Court are serious pursuits, and they should receive responsible and constructive cooperation from both the partners of the institution, and both of them shall practice and do everything at their command to save the precious time of the Court, if that is possible without sacrificing justice. Such a course has become an imperative necessity in the Constitutional Courts where the accumulation of the cases is alarming as well as long pending. Fruitful management of the Court's time is need of the hour and that cannot be achieved without constructive cooperation between the Bar and Bench.
12. Time has come for the Constitutional Courts not only to nib the unscrupulous and unjustified PILs at the bud, but also to make the movers of such PILs accountable in concrete terms. Mere disapproval of such PILs by the Courts will not help the public justice in the long run. The State spends huge sum of money out of the limited resources to provide, maintain and conduct apparatus of adjudicatory processes. If theCourt finds that the adjudicatory process is abused or misused wantonly by a person under the garb of PIL, it is but necessary to make him accountable for his litigafive luxury, in order to subserve the public interest. Public interest will never be permitted to suffer in a Public Interest Litigation. That can be achieved by imposing exemplary costs. One cannot have the pleasure of an unjustified PIL at the cost of the public just paying Rs. 100/- towards Court fee, a pittance when compared to the actual cost incurred by the State.
13. The Supreme Court in Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdary (supra) expressed its total displeasure and disgust in wasting the Court's time on account of trumpery proceedings initiated under the garb of PILs in the following words:
"It is depressing to note that on account of such trumpery proceedings initiated before the Courts, innumerable days are wasted which time otherwise could have been spent for the disposal of cases of the genuine litigants. Though we are second to none in fostering and developing the newly invented concept of PIL and extending our long arm of sympathy to the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed and the needy whose fundamental rights are infringed and violated and whose grievances go unnoticed, unrepresented and unheard; yet we cannot avoid but express our opinion that while genuine litigants with legitimate grievances relating to civil matters involving properties worth hundreds of millions of rupees and criminal cases in which persons sentenced to death facing gallows under untold agony and persons sentenced to life imprisonment and kept in incarceration for long years, persons suffering from the undue delay in service matters, Government or private persons awaiting the disposal of tax cases wherein huge amounts of public revenue or unauthorised collection of tax amounts are locked up, detenus expecting their release from the detention orders, etc., etc., -- are all standing in a long serpentinequeue for years with the fond hope of getting into the Courts and having their grievances redressed, the busy bodies, meddlesome interlopers, wayfarers or officious intervenes having absolutely no public interest except for personal gain or private profit either for themselves or as proxy of others or for any other extraneous motivation or for glare of publicity break the queue muffling their faces by wearing the mask of public interest litigation, and get into the Courts by filing vexatious and frivolous petitions and thus criminally waste the valuable time of the Courts and as a result of which the queue standing out side the doors of the Court never moves which piquant situation creates a frustration in the minds of the genuine litigants and resultantly they lose faith in the administration of our judicial system".
14. A person who desires to persist with his view point despite the fact that the point which he canvasses before a Judge has no legs to stand by the binding decisions of the larger Benches of the Court and in the process wastes the Court's time shall be made to pay the price for the wastage of public time, atleast notionally, if not fully. Such course is a 'must' not oily to curb unjustified and vexatious PILs but also to do justice to the public. The observation of the Supreme Court in S.P. Anand v. H.D. Deve Gowda (supra) is apt to be quoted:
"...... it must also be borne in mind thatno one has a right to the waiver of the locus standi rule and the Court should permit it only when it is satisfied that the carriage of proceedings in the competent hands of a person who is genuinely concerned in public interest and is not moved by other extraneous considerations. So also the Court must be careful to ensure that the process of the Court is not sought to be abused by a person who desires to persist with his point of view, almost carrying it to the point of obstinacyby filing a series of petitions refusing to accept the Court's earlier decisions as concluding the point. We say this because when we drew the attention of the petitioner to earlier decisions of this Court, he brushed them aside, without so much as showing willingness to deal with them and without giving them a second look, as having become stale and irrelevant by passage of time and challenged their correctness on the specious plea that they needed reconsideration he had no answer to the correctness of the decisions. Such a casual approach to considered decisions of this Court even by a person well-versed in law would not be countenanced. Instead, as pointed out earlier, he referred to decisions having no bearing on the question, like the decisions on cow slaughter cases, freedom of speech and expression, uniform civil code, etc., we need say no more except to point out that indiscriminate use of this important lever of public interest litigation would blunt the lever itself."
15. After necessary reflection, I am of the considered opinion tliat the instant writ petition is not a bona fide PIL, and it is filed by the petitioners under the garb of PIL for an oblique consideration and as a vexatious measure to harass the third respondent to settle a score with him.
16. In the result, writ petition isdismissed with exemplary costs quantified at Rs. 10,000/- (Rupees ten thousand) and the same shall be paid to the Andhra Pradesh State Legal Services Authority, Hyderabad jointly by the petitioners within a period of two weeks from today. The Andhra Pradesh State Legal Services Authority shall report whether the petitioners have complied with the directions.