Document Fragment View
Fragment Information
Showing contexts for: dominus litis in Sheela Barse vs Union Of India & Ors on 29 August, 1988Matching Fragments
The grievance is that the final disposal of the main petition was not expeditiously done. In a public interest litigation, unlike traditional dispute-resolution- mechanism. there is no determination or adjudication of individual rights. While in the ordinary conventional adjudications the party-structure is merely bi-polar and the controversy pertains to the determination of the legal- consequences of past events and the remedy is essentially linked to and limited by the logic of the array of the parties, in a public interest action the proceedings cut across and transcend these traditional forms and inhibitions. The compulsions for the judicial innovation of the technique of a public interest action is the constitutional promise of a social and economic transformation to usher-in an egalitarian social-order and a welfare-State. Effective solutions to the problems peculiar to this transformation are not available in the traditional- judicial-system. The proceedings in a public interest litigation are, therefore, intended to vindicate and effectuate the public interest by prevention of violation of the rights, constitutional or statutory, of sizeable segments of the society, which owing to poverty, ignorance, social and economic disadvantages cannot themselves assert- and quite often not even aware of-those rights. The technique of public interest litigation serves to provide an effective remedy to enforce these group-rights and PG NO 652 interests. In order that these public-causes are brought before the Courts, the procedural techniques judicially innovated specially for the of public interest action recognises the concomitant need to lower the Locus-standi- thresholds so as to enable public-minded citizens or social- action-groups to act as conduits between these classes of persons of inherence and the forum for the assertion and enforcement of their rights. The dispute is not comparable to one between private-parties with the result there is no recognition of the status of a Dominus-Litis for any individual or group of individuals to determine the course:
determinations but have on-going implications. Remedy is both imposed, negotiated or quasi-negotiated. Therefore, what corresponds to the stage of final disposal in an ordinary litigation is only a stage in the proceedings. There is no formal, declared termination of the proceedings. The lowering of locus-standi-threshold does PG NO 653 not involve the recognition or creation of any vested-rights on the part of those who initiate the proceedings, analogus to Dominus-Litis.
12. The first ground, therefore, does not justify the withdrawal of this public interest litigation. If we PG NO 663 acknowledge any such status of a Dominus-Litis to a person who brings a public interest litigation, we will render the proceedings in public interest litigations vulnerable to and susceptible of a new dimension which might, in conceivable cases,be used by person for personal-ends resulting in prejudice to the public-weal.
13 The second ground for withdrawal is no better. The ground is that the applicant, in view of what transpired in the two immediately preceding dates of hearing of the case, is unable to prosecute the proceedings with dignity" and that, therefore, the applicant is entitled to withdraw the proceedings. There is, and can be, no dis-agreement with the principles that even the humblest citizen of the land, irrespective of his station in life, is entitled to present his case with dignity and is entitled to be heard with courtesy and sympathy.Courts are meant for and are sustained by, the people and no litigant can be allowed to be looked upon as a supplicant or an importuner.It is, unfortunate that the applicant claims that there was any shortcom-ing in this behalf in her case. We regret that there should at all have been any occasion for this. Let us see whether there is any real justifi-cation for this.