IMPORTANT POINTS
If the public interest litigation is permitted to be misused the very purpose for which it is conceived, namely, to come to the rescue of the poor and downtrodden will be defeated. The courts should discourage the unjustified litigants at the initial stage itself and the person who misuses the forum should be made accountable for it. In the realm of public interest litigation, the courts while protecting the larger public interest involved, should at the same time have to look at the effective way in which the relief can be granted to the people whose rights are adversely affected or are at stake. When their interest can be protected and the controversy or the dispute can be adjudicated by a mechanism created under a particular statute, the parties should be relegated to the appropriate forum instead of entertaining the writ petition filed as public interest litigation.

JUDGMENT :

S. MANIKUMAR, J.

1. Mr. T.K.Abdul Asees, President of Human Rights Forum, bearing Registration No.MPM/CA/745/2015 has filed the instant public interest writ petition for a mandamus directing Medical Council of India, New Delhi, and Director, National Board of Examinations, New Delhi, respondents 1 and 2, to formulate a policy for preparation of questions for the eligibility test, for medical graduates, who have acquired MBBS from foreign countries.

2. He has also sought for a writ of certiorari directing the said respondents to produce the present system of conducting eligibility test and comparing the questions put to the fresh medical graduates. The petitioner has also sought for a certiorari directing respondents 1 and 2 to prepare questions for eligibility test to the medical graduates from the syllabus of MBBS standard.

3. Heard Sri.K.V.Sabu, learned counsel for the petitioner, and perused the materials available on record.

4. In support of the prayers, the petitioner has contended that Medical Council of India has not formulated any specific criteria for selection of questions for the eligibility test. According to him, a fresh graduate of medicine, who had acquired MBBS Degree outside India, numbering nearly 36,000 on the rolls, find it difficult to answer the questions in the eligibility test. Petitioner has contended that a minimal number of only 60 graduates qualified the test. Those medical graduates, who acquired MBBS outside India, have to appear for many occasions to pass out the eligibility test and according to him, some of them had even committed suicide. It is also his submission that those, who had acquired MBBS Degree outside India, are working for a meager salary in private hospitals.

5. In support of the above contentions, the petitioner has relied on News Paper reports published in New Indian Express dated 24.6.2016 and Mathrubhumi daily. Based on the above news items, the petitioner seems to have submitted a representation dated 8.3.2016 (Ext.P5), before the Hon'ble Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi. In the typed set of papers, there is a letter sent by Forum of Foreign Medical Graduates & Parents in India, Kollam dated 10.7.2016 (Ext.P6) to the Hon'ble Prime Minister, Government of India.

6. For both the letters, Exts.P5 and P6 respectively, stated to have been addressed to the Hon'ble Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi and to the Hon'ble Prime Minister, Government of India, there is no postal acknowledgment. Thus, there is no proof.

7. From the above, it could be seen that instant writ petition has been filed purely based on news paper reports. We deem it fit to consider few decisions on public interest litigations.

8. In Tamil Nadu Health Employees Welfare Association v. The Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of India and Ors., the Hon'ble High Court of Madras on 22.3.2019 held that:

“16. Instant writ petition has been filed as a Public Interest Litigation and therefore, deem it fit to consider few decisions relating to public interest writ petitions,

(i) In S.P.Anand v. H.D.Deve Gowda, reported in 1996 (6) SCC 734, the Hon'ble Supreme Court, at Paragraph 18, held as follows:

"It is of utmost importance that those who invoke this Court's jurisdiction seeking a waiver of the locus standi rule must exercise restraint in moving the Court by not plunging in areas wherein they are not well-versed. Such a litigant must not succumb to spasmodic sentiments and behave like a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of issues providing publicity. He must remember that as a person seeking to espouse a public cause, he owes it to the public as well as to the court that he does not rush to court without undertaking a research, even if he is qualified or competent to raise the issue. Besides, it must be remembered that a good cause can be lost if petitions are filed on half-baked information without proper research or by persons