The Chhattisgarh High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction to the respondents to immediately stop the illegal commercial use of the basement parking of all commercial complexes situated within the Municipal Limits of Bhilai and to restore the respective basement parking to its original use.
The PIL further prayed :-
-to issue an appropriate writ, order thereby directing the respondents to prevent parking of vehicles on the service road and further to stop its use as parking.
-to issue an appropriate writ, order, direction thereby quashing and setting aside the regularization certificates dated 27-8-2017 (P/3), dated 27-5-2017 (P/9) and dated 5-11-2018 (P/20), the same being illegal and arbitrary.
-to issue an appropriate writ, order, direction thereby directing the respondent State authorities to ensure that parking rules and regulations and building laws & byelaws are strictly followed for private respondents and the private respondent hotels and banquet halls may not be permitted to function till then.
At the very outset, Sarfaraj Khan, counsel for the respondents Hotels has pointed out that FIR has been lodged by Subhash Prasad Sao, who is proprietor of respondents Hotels , and is running hotel business, against the petitioner under Section 384, 506 and Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, which has been registered on 25-6-2022 in pursuance of the order 24-6-2022 of the Court passed .
Animesh Verma, counsel for the petitioner, admitted the fact that FIR has been registered against the petitioner and after investigation, closure report has been filed. Chandresh Shrivastava, Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State submits that no notice has been issued to the complainant/private respondents.
In view of above submissions,the Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice N.K. Chandravanshi noted that the instant matter appears to be a personal litigation between the petitioner and the private respondents and on this ground alone, the Public Interest Litigation is not maintainable.
The Bench said that it is the duty of this Court to ensure that there is no personal gain, private motive and oblique motive 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 Court should ensure that jurisdiction in public interest is invoked for genuine purpose by persons who have bona fide credentials and who do not seek the 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, observed the Bench.