This Division Bench dismissed a PIL petition filed by Shaikh Suleman alleging corruption by Panchayat officials. The court held the petition failed to meet minimum norms as it lacked documentary support for RTI claims and did not explain the four-year delay in filing.
The petition is dismissed in the interests of justice.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD
PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION NO.123 OF 2019
Shaikh Suleman S/o Shaikh Bhayya, age: 41 years, Occu: business & agriculture r/o Ajwa-Nagar, Waluj, Ta. Gangapur, Dist. Aurangabad
...PETITIONER
VERSUS
Mr. S.A. Gaikwad, Advocate for Petitioner Mr. S.S. Dande, AGP for Respondents-State
CORAM : PRASANNA B. VARALE AND ANIL S. KILOR, JJ.
DATE : 11th NOVEMBER, 2019
PER COURT :
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stated that the present PIL is presented in the matter of Article 226 of the Constitution of India for a direction to conduct an inquiry into the corruption of lakhs of rupees by the Sarpanch, Gram-Sevak and Members of Village Gram-Panchayat, Waluj, Dist. Aurangabad.
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representation submitted to the Collector only in the year 2018. Secondly, in so far as the issue of source of information is concerned, it is stated in the petition that therefore, the petitioner applied for information under the Right to Information Act, wherein the authority has not supplied the complete information. Therefore, the petitioner preferred an appeal before the appellate authority and the same is pending. Now, there is absolutely not a single document in support of any of the statements namely, either copy of an application submitted to an authority taking recourse to Right to Information Act, copy of an appeal being aggrieved by the information supplied and the same being unsatisfactory, the appeal is filed to the appellate authority. Without placing on record any of such material document, the petition is filed, under the caption of PIL. It would be again necessary and useful to refer to the Bombay High Court Public Interest Litigation Rules, 2010, and the proforma petition under the Rules, makes a reference to the declaration and undertaking and the expectation under the Rules is that thorough research has been conducted in the matter raised through the petition. If this is the minimum expectation, it was then certainly expected of the present petitioner to at least place on record the document in support of a statement in the petition that the petitioner has taken recourse to Right to Information Act, and there was an unsatisfactory reply. Being aggrieved by that, the petitioner has filed an appeal. Except making a bald statement, no material is placed on record and there is only an undue haste to drop the petition in this
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Court, either with no details or with some statements or with the statements without support of any satisfactory document, the petition with number of lacunae, cannot be entertained by this Court as a Public Interest Litigation only because the petitioner’s title the petition as a PIL.
[ ANIL S. KILOR ] JUDGE
[ PRASANNA B. VARALE ] JUDGE
mta
2 issues framed by the court
Whether a PIL petition lacking documentary support for allegations of corruption and showing delay in approaching authorities satisfies the minimum norms to be entertained.
Whether the High Court is obligated to entertain a PIL petition filed without placing material documents in support of allegations.
Shaikh Suleman
The State of Maharashtra
The Chief Executive Officer, Zilla-Parishad Aurangabad
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Village-Panchayat
The Block Development Officer, Panchayat Samiti Gangapur
Subhash chiman Lavale
Prasanna B. Varale
Anil S. Kilor
As recorded by the court registry
Litigation brought on behalf of the public interest rather than a personal grievance, relaxing the usual rule of locus standi.
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
