Don't lend shoulder to fire guns: Madras High Court warns PIL lawyers
The bench said the commissioner himself has raised the issue and called for an independent enquiry to unearth the involvement of any officer.
Chennai: Doubting the bona fides of an advocate in filing a Public Interest Litigation, the Madras High Court dismissed his petition seeking a direction to the CBI to probe into the alleged connivance of senior police officers as raised by the Commissioner of Police, in the sale of banned substances of Gutka and Pan Masala in Tamil Nadu.
“We also doubt the bona fides of the petitioner in filing the present petition. We have even earlier commented a number of times on advocates lending their names as litigants and lending their shoulder to fire the gun, something which is condemnable. This is one more such case. It, in fact, seeks to give an impression as if some view officially was taken is sought to be further pressed in the government decision system by filing a Public Interest Litigation”, said a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M. Sundar while dismissing the petition from T.Vincent.
The bench said the petitioner, a lawyer by profession, seeks to file this PIL for initiating an enquiry by the CBI regarding the alleged connivance of senior police officers, as raised by the Commissioner of Police in his letter dated December 22, 2016 in respect of the subject matter of sale of banned substances of Gutka and Pan Masala in Tamil Nadu.
The averments in the petition show that there was no specific groundwork made by the petitioner to come to a conclusion that a fair and impartial enquiry would not take place or the reason for him to suspect the same. Other than press reports, the only material, as was apparent from the prayer itself, was actually a secret/confidential letter written by the Commissioner of Police, Chennai, to the Principal Secretary to the government. How such a letter comes to the hands of the petitioner was a moot point, the bench added.
The bench said the commissioner himself has raised the issue and called for an independent enquiry to unearth the involvement of any officer. The said step shows that the authorities were quite conscious of the importance of the issue and this letter was as recently as the last month. ‘We see no reason why the court should step into this issue when the authorities are themselves conscious of the gravity of the “, the bench added.