The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain PIL “claiming illegal” opening of offices during the Nationwide lockdown, by Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) such as SAIL, NBCC etc by “wrongly identifying themselves as government department/offices.”
A three-judge bench comprising of Justices Ashok Bhushan, SK Kaul and BR Gavai, took up the matter through video conferencing and said the court was not inclined to entertain the matter and dismissed the PIL.
The PIL has been filed by Advocate Anil k Agarwal, the petitioner-in-person with the view of the protection of public health and safety and has prayed for direction against “illegal opening” of PSEs such as SAIL and NBCC etc, the restriction on movement and preventive measures taken by the Central Government/ Government of NCT of Delhi for Containment of the Corona Virus COVID-19 Pandemic.
The petition filed before the court with a view to elude that the Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) were treating themselves as government offices, and were opening up despite the institution of the nationwide lockdown in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
The petitioner took a notice of public safety and health of the employees in the wake of Pandemic virus enlightened that such companies which deal in non essential goods and services should be treated in appropriate manner of urgency and in accordance with law too.
In the backdrop of above, the Supreme Court observed that many advocates were filing petitions as petitioner-in-persons have questioned the practice and dismissed the petition on the basis of non-finding of merits.
-India Legal Bureau