Public Interest Litigation

(PIL)
Third Lecture

MADVS2002C04: Law and Development

Lecture Notes
Dr. Anju Helen Bara
Department of Development Studies
Central University of South Bihar, Panchanpur, Gaya

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 Key points of discussion
• Introduction to PIL
• Historical context of PIL: India
• Evolution of PIL in India: Three phases
• Positive side of PIL
• Negative side of PIL
• Measures taken by SC
– Note: Various articles, journals, books has been
used to prepare this lecture note. See the
reference section
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 Introduction

• The expression Public Interest means as an act

beneficial to the general public. It means an action
necessarily taken for public purpose (Wadhera, 2009);
• Public Interest Litigation is concerned with providing
access to justice to all sections of the society. Public
Interest Litigation in India has been a part of the
constitutional scheme;
• One of the overarching aims of law and legal systems
has been to achieve justice in the society and public
interest litigation (PIL) has proved to be a useful tool in
achieving this objective;

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 Historical Context
• After gaining independence from the British rule on August 15,
1947, the people of India adopted a Constitution in November 1949
with the hope to establish a ‘‘sovereign socialist secular democratic
republic’’;
• Among others, the Constitution aims to secure to all its citizens
justice (social, economic and political), liberty (of thought,
expression, belief, faith and worship) and equality (of status and of
opportunity); (refer D. D. Basu, 2011)
• The main tools employed to achieve such social change were the
provisions on fundamental rights (FRs) and the directive principles
of state policy(DPs),which Austin described as the ‘‘conscience of
the Constitution’’ (Yap and Lau, 2010);
• The founding fathers wanted to ensure that FRs does not remain
mere promise, hence they made various provisions in the
Constitution to establish an independent an strong judiciary;

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• The need for PIL was more pressing in a country like India where a
great majority of people were either ignorant of their rights or were
too poor to approach the court;
• Realising this need, the Court held that any member of public acting
bona fide and having sufficient interest has a right to approach the
court for redressal of a legal wrong, especially when the actual
plaintiff suffers from some disability or the violation of collective
diffused rights is at stake;
• The Supreme Court in Gupta v Union of India held: ‘‘Where a legal
wrong or a legal injury is caused to a person or to a determinate
class of persons by reason of violation of any constitutional or legal
right ...and such person or determinate class of persons is by
reasons of poverty, helplessness, or disability or socially or
economically disadvantaged position, unable to approach the Court
for any relief, any member of the public can maintain an application
for an appropriate direction, order or writ.’’ (Deva, 2009)
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• The seeds of the concept of Public Interest Litigation were sown
in India in Mumbai Kamgar Sabha v. Abdulbhai (without using the
term – Public Interest Litigation) where the Supreme Court
observed that “Our adjectival branch of jurisprudence, by and
large, deals not with sophisticated litigants but the poor, the
urban lay and the weaker societal segments for whom law will be
an added torture if technical misdescriptions and deficiencies in
drafting pleadings and setting out the cause title create secret
weapon to non-suit a part.” (Walia, 2009);
• Judiciary realized that technical difficulties in drafting legal
pleadings results in denial of access to justice to a large section of
the society because of their extreme poverty, ignorance,
discrimination and illiteracy from time immemorial;
• There was an urgent need to provide access to justice to the poor,
deprived, vulnerable, discriminated and marginalized sections of
the society;
• Hence, Judiciary while exercising its power of judicial review
initiated, encouraged and promoted Public Interest Litigation in
India;

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 Three Phases of PIL
Year Who filed PIL What kind of cases Role of Judiciary

1980s Generally filed by public spirited Cases related to the violation of the The judiciary responded by recognizing the
persons (lawyers, journalists, rights of the disadvantaged groups rights of these people and giving directions
activists, academics) such as child labourers, bonded to the government to redress the alleged
labourers, prisoners, mentally violations;
challenged people, pavement
dwellers, women
1990s Filing PIL became more Issues became more broad such as The judiciary took bolder decisions. The
institutionalized. Several protection of environment to courts gave detailed guidelines where
specialized NGOs and lawyers corruption free administration, right there were legislative gaps. Misuse of PIL
started filing PIL to education, sexual harassment, began for private purposes. The courts did
accountability of the government not hesitate to reach centres of
government power and extended
protection of Fundamental rights. Became
an instrument to promote rule of law
2000 Anyone can file a PIL for almost Introspection time for judiciary to think
anything eg. Calling back the what it wants. Judiciary more restraint in
Indian cricket team from the issuing directions to the government.
Australia tour Judiciary shown support to disinvestment
and development policies of the
government., but this comes at the cost of
the sympathetic response that the rights
and interests of impoverished and
vulnerable sections of the society.

Deva, 2009
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 Positive side of PIL
• Through PIL judiciary has become more closer to the disadvantaged
people. Deva (2009) has argued that PIL brings social revolution
through constitutional means;
• PIL has expanded the jurisprudence of fundamental rights and
human rights in India; for instance, Directive principles are non
justifiable rights, the courts imported some of its principles into
Fundamental rights, hence made many socio-economic rights
important. Thus leading to the legal recognition of these rights as
important as education, health, livelihood, environment, speedy
trial and privacy;
• Through PIL, judiciary brought many legislative reforms for instance,
Vishaka case which brought forth the guidelines on sexual
harassment at work place (Deva, 2009);
• PIL helped to build trust and garner public confidence for the
judiciary;

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 Negative side of PIL
• PIL has negative aspects also. Many new problems arise
such as an unanticipated increase in the workload of the
superior courts, lack of judicial infrastructure to determine
factual matters, gap between the promise and reality,
abuse of process, friction and confrontation with fellow
organs of the government, and dangers inherent in judicial
populism (Desai and Muralidhar, 2000).
• PIL has been criticised for being misused for
personal/private interest
• Desai and Muralidhar (2000), ‘PIL is being misused by
people agitating for private grievances in the grab of public
interest and seeking publicly rather than espousing public
causes.”
• Indian judiciary is facing crisis of human resources and it
becomes a difficult task for courts to handle all cases, in
such situation frivolous PIL should be stopped;
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 Negative side of PIL
• Courts are taking long time in disposing of even PIL cases;
• PIL creates the problem of judicial populism , which means
that judges sometimes think themselves as crusaders and
want to become people’s judges (Deva, 2009)
• In India PIL cases often turn into symbolic justice. For
instance, Vishaka judgment brought guidelines but little
progress has been made in combating sexual harassment
of women;
• Non seriousness of redressal of PIL. “The overuse of PIL
for every conceivable public interest might dilute the
original commitment to use this remedy only for enforcing
human rights of the victimised and the disadvantaged
groups” (Singh, 2000)

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 Corrections measure by Supreme
Court
• There is a need to prevent misuse of PIL;
• The judiciary has responded to the dark side of PIL in two
ways.
• First, the Indian Supreme Court as well as High Courts have
tried to send strong messages on a case-to-case basis
whenever they noticed that the process of PIL was misused. In
some cases, the courts have gone to the extent of imposing a
fine on plaintiffs who abused the judicial process;
• Second, the Supreme Court has taken was to compile a set of
‘‘Guidelines to be Followed for Entertaining Letters/Petitions
Received by it as PIL’’.

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 Conclusion
• PIL has an important role to play in the civil justice system in
that it affords a ladder to justice to disadvantaged sections of
society, some of which might not even be well-informed
about their rights.;
• PIL could also contribute to good governance by keeping the
government accountable;

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 References
• Desai and Muralidhar (2000), Public Interest Litigation: Potential and
Problems, in Kirpal et al (eds) Supreme but not Infallible, Oxford University
Press, New Delhi
• Deva, S, 2009, ‘Public Interest Litigation in India: A Critical Review’, Civil
Justice Quarterly, Issue 1
• Basu, D. D. (2011), An Introduction to the Indian Constitution, Twentieth
edition, Lewis Nexis
• Singh, (2000) ‘Protecting the Rights of the Disadvantaged Groups through
Public Interest Litigation’ in Singh, Goerlich and von Hauff (eds), Human
Rights and Basic Need, Universal Law Publishing Co Ltd.
• Yap, P. J and H. Lau, (2010), Public interest Litigation in Asia, Routledge
• Walia, I Kaur, (2009), Public Interest Litigation: An Expression of Voice for
the Sufferers of Silence
(https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1510271 retrieved
on March 30, 2020)
• Wadehra, B. L, (2009), Public Interest Litigation: A Handbook, Universal
Law Publishing

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