Public Interest Litigation requires genuine public interest and appropriate standing; repeated petitions without addressing prior judicial concerns are not maintainable.

JUDGMENT :

Sujit Narayan Prasad, J.

Prayer

1. The writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in the nature of Public Interest Litigation seeking therein following reliefs :-

a. Issue a writ, order or direction constituting a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a retired judge of this Hon’ble Court and comprising of a Superintendent of Police (SP) rank officer each from the Income Tax Department (ITD), Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and Jharkhand Police to investigate into the various allegations of disproportionate assets beyond known sources of income, corruption and various illegal activities against Shri Dhullu Mahto (Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Dhanbad) in a time bound manner.

b. Issue a writ, order or direction transferring all (if any) investigation against Shri Dhullu Mahto pending before the CBI, Income Tax Department and ED to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by this Hon’ble Court.

c. Issue a writ, order or direction, preferably in the nature of a ’continuing mandamus’ so as to enable this Hon’ble Court to regularly monitor the investigation being carried out by the SIT from time to time.

d. Issue a writ, order or direction taking cognizance of the defective, biased, slow, willfully negligent and tainted investigation carried out by the agencies/officers in the present matter for the last 13+ years leading to a gross delay thereby perpetuating illegality and rendering the administration of justice irrelevant and defunct.

e. Issue a writ, order or direction providing state security to the petitioner herein given the grave threat to his life and liberty.

f. Pass any other appropriate writ(s), order(s) or direction(s) as your Lordships may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the present case.

Factual Matrix

2. The brief facts of the case as per the pleading made in the writ petition, which are required to be enumerated, read as under:-

It is the case of the petitioner that this petitioner had approached this Court by way of a Public Interest Litigation being W.P.(PIL) No. 6438 of 2011 seeking investigation into, inter alia, the disproportionate assets beyond the known sources of income of Shri Dhullu Mahto. After hearing the said PIL, this Court disposed of the same by an order dated 30.03.2016 observing that the authorities would carry out the necessary investigation into the petitioner’s allegations after giving an opportunity of hearing to Shri Dhullu Mahto.

3. When no action was taken by the investigating authorities/agencies on the petitioner’s representations/ complaints, he filed one Civil Miscellaneous Petition being C.M.P. No. 184 of 2018 seeking status report of the investigation, if any, carried out as per this Court’s order dated 30.03.2016 in W.P.(PIL) No.6438 of 2011.

4. In C.M.P. No. 184 of 2018, the Income Tax Department filed an affidavit dated 10.02.2020 stating that after preliminary investigation into the complaints of the petitioner, several income tax violations and a few benami properties were discovered. The affidavit further stated that necessary action as per the INCOME