Courts must discourage frivolous PILs and ensure that substantial public interest is involved before entertaining a petition.

JUDGMENT :

SUDHANSHU DHULIA, J.

1. The matter is taken up through video conferencing.

2. Heard Mrs. B.S. Goyal, the petitioner in person and Mr. D. Saikia, learned Advocate General, Assam, appearing for the respondent Nos. 1 to 4 and Mr. R.K.D. Choudhury, learned Assistant Solicitor General of India, appearing for the respondent No. 5.

3. This Public Interest Litigation has been filed by the petitioner, who is a practicing lawyer before this court. Her argument is that in the present COVID-19 pandemic, the frontline workers, particularly, the doctors and the paramedics are not being provided with a proper Personal Protective Equipment (‘PPE’) kits. According to the petitioner, the PPE Kit which is presently being provided to doctors and paramedics is non-porous and it does not allow air to pass in and out and it causes much discomfort to the doctors while examining the patients. In order to ease out this difficulty, the petitioner has filed the present petition stating that now another PPE Kit is available in the market which has got “Air Purifying Respiratory Devices”. The petitioner has also done some research on this aspect and in paragraph 6 of her petition, she has named five companies who either manufacture or deal with such equipments and the prices range from Rs. 10,800 to Rs. 1,19,400 per piece of these PPE kits. The petitioner then makes a very strange request in the same paragraph of the petition (paragraph 6) where she has offered a cheque of Rs. 1,18,000 to the Government to purchase at least ten such PPE kits on experimental basis. Her prayers in the petition are as follows

“In the premises aforesaid, it is humble prayed that this hon'ble court may be graciously pleased to call for the records, issue notice calling upon the respondents to show cause as to why a writ in the nature of Mandamus and/or any other appropriate writ, order or direction be not issued directing the respondents to provide PPE kits/suits powered by air purifying respiratory devices to the Corona Warriors so as to ensure minimum human working conditions to the doctors, health workers and any other paramedical staffs associated with COVID related duties and on cause or causes shown and after hearing the parties make the rule absolute and/or pass such further or other order or orders as to this hon'ble court may deem fit and proper.

In the interim be further pleased to pass such appropriate order, directions that this hon'ble court may deem proper in the facts and circumstances of the case.”

4. During this COVID-19 pandemic, this court has been dealing with a number of PILs, which have focused on various aspects of the present pandemic, such as, the condition of sex workers where they are not getting even their daily ration, conditions of the marginalized workers, even the plight of doctors, who at least in one case was manhandled.

5. This court has taken cognizance in all such PILs and at different stages directions have been given in these PILs.

6. A genuine and bona fide PIL must be encouraged by all Courts but at the same time, a frivolous PIL which is being filed for extraneous reasons must be discouraged. This has been the law as laid down by the hon'ble Apex Court in its seminal judgment, i.e., State of Uttaranchal v. Balwant Singh Chaufal, (2010) 3 SCC 402, wherein it gave certain guidelines, which are as follows

“(1) The courts must encourage genuine and bona fide PIL and effectively discourage and curb the PIL filed for extraneous considerations.

(2) Instead of every individual Judge devising his own procedure for dealing with the public interest litigation, it would be appropriate for each High Court to properly formulate rules for encouraging the genuine PIL and discouraging the PIL filed with oblique motives. Consequently, we request that the High Courts who have not yet framed the rules, should frame the rules within three months. The