The court emphasized the need for petitioners in public interest litigation to come with clean hands and be above suspicion, and laid down parameters to prevent misuse of public interest litigation.

JUDGMENT

J. Singh, J. - The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioners purportedly in the nature of a Public Interest Litigation seeking reliefs against the State and some of the private opposite parties alleging some illegal mining and transportation of minerals etc. resulting in loss of public exchequer.

2. Without going into the merits of the matter, we feel the procedural improprieties resorted to by the petitioners herein and their counsel persuade us to believe that there is something much more than which meets the eye.

3. We find from the perusal of the file attached herewith that the same advocate had filed a previous writ petition in the form of Public Interest Litigation being W.P. (C) 16719 of 2020 with different set of petitioners (11 in number) with similar content and seeking identical relief sought herein. We find further from the perusal of the file of the earlier similar Public Interest Litigation-W.P.(C) No.16719 of 2020 attached herewith that the allegation/grievance raised in both the petitions are similar in substance. In fact, it is noticed that the advocate in both the petitions is the same i.e. one Mr. Sambit Samal. What has changed is that the earlier set of petitioners have merely been replaced by another set of petitioners and some minor alterations have been made in the pleadings in the subsequent/instant Writ Petition. The aforesaid writ petition got dismissed as withdrawn by this Court vide order dated 21.07.2020.

This Court has to be satisfied about the credentials of the applicant; prima facie correctness or nature of information given by him and the information furnished being not vague and indefinite. But in the present case, we find it to be a mischievous petition seeking to assail with oblique motives which prevents us from invoking our discretionary writ jurisdiction.

4. No declaration has been made so as to validate the bona fide of the petitioners or to demonstrate in what manner they have been said to be public spirited persons except for the fact that they are purportedly residents of Keonjhar. It also reveals that in order to pay a lip service to the rules a representation has been made in order to facilitate the filing of the present writ petition.

5. At this juncture, it will be worthwhile to briefly deal with the relevant rules. The petition has not been filed in the form appended to the Orissa High Court Public Interest Litigation Rules, 2010 wherein Rule 6 clearly stipulates that 'Public Interest Litigation under Article 226 of the Constitution of India shall be in the form appended here to'. In gross contravention to the mandatory requirements of the form, the petitioners have deliberately suppressed that a previous Writ Petition (PIL) was filed by the same Advocate in question on the very same issue vide W.P.(C) PIL No.16719 of 2020 and the same was withdrawn by the order dated 21.07.2020. Also, the petitioners have not annexed any document in order to validate either their credentials or to demonstrate that they are public spirited persons, except for a bald pleading to that effect. Even the addresses of most of the petitioners are incomplete in contravention to Rule 5 of the Orissa High Court Public Interest Litigation Rules, 2010. A bare perusal of Rule 5 of the extant rules demonstrates that an obligation is cast upon the court itself to verify and satisfy itself as to the bona fide of not only the cause in question but also the parties who bring such a cause to the court. Rule 5 of the rules provides as hereunder:

' 5.The Court before entertaining the PIL is to prima facie

(i) verify the credentials of the petitioner/ petitioners

(ii) shall satisfy with regard to the correctness of the contents of the petition and

(iii) shall satisfy that substantial public interest involved in the PIL.'

6. Further, Rule 7 of the said Rules provides that if certain pleadings in the petition are based on news reports, the petitioners must verify as to the veracity of the pleadings being