Public interest litigation must be pursued bona fide and not for ulterior motives.

JUDGEMENT

(PER : HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA)

1. By this Public Interest Litigation, the petitioner has prayed for a direction upon the Chief Election Commissioner, New Delhi, to educate the voters in general, and illiterate in particular, by implementing the directions given by the Apex Court in Writ Petition [Civil] No. 161/2004 and by this Court in WP [PIL] No. 288/2013 by issuing Electronic and Print Media, hoardings, advertisements etc. and thereby carry out mass awareness programme in respect of “None Of The Above” [NOTA] category. The petitioner has also asserted the fact that NOTA symbol has not been properly depicted in the ballot papers in the recently held Assembly Elections in five States, and for that reason, this Court should declare those Assembly Elections as illegal.

2. This application, in our view, is totally devoid of any merit. If according to the petitioner, the directions given by the Apex Court in Writ Petition [Civil] No. 161/2004 or by this Court in WP[PIL] No. 288/2013 have not been complied with, the petitioner should in detail give particulars of the violations. Such basic facts should not be vague and at the same time, the petitioner should take the responsibility of making such statements on oath as true to his knowledge or based on information received from legally recognized source which he must believe to be true. In no case, he can come up with information based on hearsay with an intention to have a roving enquiry through this court. Similarly, the petitioner having moved this application in person, should at least have this limited knowledge of law that this Court has no territorial jurisdiction to declare the Assembly Elections held in 5 different States as illegal. It appears that the petitioner has relied upon the various newspaper cuttings without complying with the requirement of Rule 3[d] of the High Court of Gujarat [Practice & Procedure for Public Interest Litigation Rules],

2010 and verifying the statements made in such newspaper cuttings.

As pointed out by the Supreme Court in the case of Laxmi Raj Shetty and another v. State of T.N. reported in AIR 1988 SC 1274, a statement of fact contained in a newspaper is merely hearsay and therefore, inadmissible in evidence in the absence of the maker of the statement appearing in Court and deposing to have perceived the fact reported. A newspaper is not one of the documents referred to in S. 78(2) of the Evidence Act, 1872 by which an allegation of fact can be proved. The presumption of genuineness attached under S. 81 of the Evidence Act to a newspaper report cannot be treated as proof of the facts reported therein.

3. The petitioner has further alleged that NOTA symbol has not been printed in the local language in the ballot paper, but it is printed only in English language. The above statement also appears to be a wrong statement as Mr. Mihir Joshi, the learned Sr. Advocate, appearing on behalf of the Election Commission has placed before us the document showing that NOTA symbol has also been printed in the ballot paper in Gujarati language.

4. At this stage, we may profitably refer to the following observations of the Supreme Court in the case of Neetu vs. State of Punjab reported in AIR 2007 SC 758 where the Apex Court pointed out the duty of the court to consider the following aspect before entertaining public interest litigation:

“Public interest litigation is a weapon which has to be used with great care and circumspection and the judiciary has to be extremely careful to see that behind the beautiful veil of public interest an ugly priva