( 1 ) THIS Criminal Revision Petition has been filed by a private party, namely, People s Union for Civil Liberties (hereinafter referred to as PUCL) against the order of learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate passed in a case which has come to be commonly referred to as St. Kitts conspiracy case, discharging Satish Sharma and R. K. Dhawan two of the accused on the ground that no case was made out against them. Charges were framed against rest of the accused persons. It may be noticed that tins very PUCL had approached the Hon ble Supreme Court for intervention but their request was declined. Instead the Hon ble Supreme Court appointed an amicus curiae and allowed the parties to render assistance to Mr. Anil Dewan, the said Amicus Curiae. Hon ble Supreme Court while disposing of the application for intervention passed the following order:

"we do not consider it appropriate to permit any intervention in this matter. Shri Anil Dewan has been requested by us to appear as Amicus Curiae in this matter. He has kindly agreed to do so. It is open to anyone who so de- sires, to assist Shri Anil Dewan and to make available to him whatever material he chooses to rely on in public interest to enable Shri Dewan effectively and properly discharge his functions as Amicus Curiae. Except in this kind of assistance to the learned Amicus Curiae we do not permit any person either to be impleaded as party or to appear as an intervenor. In our opinion, this is necessary for expeditious disposal of this matter and to avoid the focus on the crux of the matter getting diffused in the present case by the appearance of many per sons acting independently in the garb of public interest. In view of the above order made by us, I. A. No. 4 is not pressed by Mr. Ram Jethmalani. Sr. Adv. and Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, Adv. appearing in the matter. I. A. No. 4 is dismissed as not pressed. "

( 2 ) AS I entertained serious doubts on the locus standi of a third party, in this case PUCL, to file a Criminal Revision against a judicial order passed in a criminal prosecution, I proceeded to hear the partics on the question of locus standi of this petitioner to file the present revision petition. Incidentally, the said PUCL is headed by none other than Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Advocate.

( 3 ) MR. Shanti Bhushan, who was ably assisted by his son Mr. Prashant Bhushan, had placed reliance mainly on the judgment delivered by Hon ble the Chief Justice Mr. P. N. Bhagwati (as he then was) in the case of Shaonandan Paswan Vs State of Bihar reported as 1987 (1) SCC 288. Mr. Shanti Bhushan had laid stress that they should be permitted to press the present petition being the one in the domain of public interest litigation. I have no doubt that public interest litigation has a very important role to play in bringing to light certain issues which concern the society or to enforce the fundamental rights of citizens or to prevent any violation thereof. At the same time, in my opinion, the Court should be extremely careful and slow in extending right to move any petition in criminal matters to third parlies when in the scheme of criminal law even the complainant, except where in certain specified cases it is permitted under the Code of Criminal Procedure, has no locus standi to move any petition. on his own. The filing of a petition as public interest litigation for enforcement of civil liberty or a democratic right of the citizen is not the same thing as moving a criminal revision petition challenging a judicial order. It is also not the case of drawing attention of the authorities or setting the machinery in motion to initiate action in respect of an alleged offence.

( 4 ) INITIALLY, in the light of the arguments advanced by Mr. Shanti Bhushan and in the light of the views of Justice Bhagwati which were read in the Court it appeared that there is some merit in those contentions. But that is not the case as would become clear from the following discussion.

( 5 ) THE reasons given b