The Chhattisgarh High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction to the respondent authorities to remove the encroachments from the government lands with structures standing thereon made on the land in Cremation Ground , Cattle Cremation ground , Charagah , Gothan , Main Road , Streets , Playground , Schools ground , Ponds , etc.
The Petitioners further seeks direction to the Collector, Raipur to personally oversee the complete execution of eviction of individual respondents/ encroachers and get the encroached lands cleared forthwith and submit compliance report to the High Court and that the respondent authorities to register offence against the trace-passers/ individual respondents and also against the responsible lower Revenue Officials who are/ were responsible for encroachment.
It is submitted by the counsel for the petitioner that the matter of encroachment of the government land (public utility lands) cannot be treated ordinarily and it should be treated as a grave offence against the State. Article 300-A of the Constitution of India deals with persons not to be deprived of property save by authority of law. He further submits that the petitioner has filed as many as 07 applications to the respondent authorities to evict the individual respondents/ trespassers from the government land. On 04.02.2021, the petitioner described the names of all the trespassers/ encroachers with Khasra numbers, areas, maps and photographs which are annexed in the petition and submitted application in the public interest to all the respondents authorities either by hand or by registered post and requested them to take action against the encroachers, but unfortunately no action has been taken for reasons best known to the authorities and till date, the private respondents/ trespassers are still illegal occupants of public utility lands and the lower official of the respondents authorities and even the village Panchayat colluded with them and they have no interest in removing the encroachers. Particularly, the respondent No. 7/ Patwari and respondent No. 8/ Gram Panchayat have failed to do their duties in protecting the government lands of village Panchayat Modha, Tehsil Tilda, District Raipur (C.G.).
On the other hand, Gagan Tiwari, Deputy Government Advocate, appearing for the State and Sumesh Bajaj, learned counsel, appearing for the private respondents submit that the petition deserves to be dismissed on the count that the petitioner has personal interest in filing the present petition, as the petitioner’s wife had contested the Sarpanch election and she lost the said election and only after that the petitioner filed this petition styled as public interest litigation and alleged the Sarpanch and Panchas for encroaching/ trespassing the government lands with the help of the respondents authorities.
Having considered the rival submissions of the counsel for the parties and gone through the record, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice N.K. Chandravanshi saod that it is the duty of the Court to ensure that there is no personal gain, private motive and oblique notice behind filing of PIL. In order to preserve the purity and sanctity of the PIL, the Courts must encourage genuine and bonafide PIL and effectively discourage and curb the PIL filed for extraneous considerations.
“The Courts should, prima facie, verify the credentials of the petitioner before entertaining a PIL. It is also well-settled that the Courts, before entertaining the PIL should ensure that the PIL is aimed at redressal of genuine public harm or public injury. The Courts should ensure the jurisdiction in public interest is invoked for genuine purposes by persons who have bona fide credentials and who do not seek to espouse or pursue any extraneous object. Otherwise, the jurisdiction in public interest can become a source of misuse by private persons seeking to pursue their own vested interests’, the Court observed.
The Bench was not satisfied that this is a genuine petition filed in public interest so as to invoke the jurisdiction in the public interest under Article 226 of the Constitution as it has been not denied by the petitioner that his wife contested the election of Sarpanch of the concerned village and she has lost. The petitioner, thus, has some oblique motive in filing the present PIL against the private respondents.
Hence, the Court do not find any good ground to interfere in the present PIL leaving it open to the aggrieved persons to approach the appropriate Forum/ authority for redressal of their grievances, if any.