Supreme Court Said Professional Pil Litigants To Be Heard Only After Depositing Fine Imposed On Them

The Supreme Court has made a very important observation for the professional litigants who have filed the PIL. The court has said that it will not hear the petitions of such petitioners until they deposit the amount of fine imposed on them. This observation of the court is also important because many times such public interest litigations are filed due to which the time of the court is wasted.

The Supreme Court on Friday said it will not hear professional litigants who have filed PILs until they deposit the amount of fine imposed on them by the court.

The court was hearing an application filed by two persons. They were fined Rs 5 lakh by the top court in August 2017 for filing a ‘sponsored’ petition challenging the appointment of the then Chief Justice (CJI) Dipak Misra.

Death of one petitioner and the other in jail
The top court was informed that one of them, Swami Om, died last year during the first wave of the Covid pandemic, while Mukesh Jain is in Balasore jail for the past one year.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah told advocate AP Singh, appearing for Jain, that it has already rejected the application for waiving the fine and a contempt notice has been issued to her.

Have to pay fine or we will punish: Court
The bench said that we will not hear the professional litigants who have filed any public interest litigation till they pay the fine imposed on them. They (Jains) will have to pay the fine or we will punish them.

The court asked Singh to ask Jain to pay the fine or on the next date of hearing, the court would pass an order that he could not file any petition before the Supreme Court until he paid the fine.

Singh said Jain has been released on bail from the Odisha jail and will appear in the court during the next hearing. On this, the court listed the matter for hearing after three weeks.

Fines need to be imposed so that..
The Supreme Court had on August 24, 2017 said that Swami Om and Mukesh Jain needed to be fined so that a message could be sent to prevent people like them from filing such petitions.

Swami Om and Jain have not alleged anything in their petition against the then CJI (Justice Dipak Misra) and referred to the constitutional scheme on the appointment of CJI and Chief Justices of High Courts and said that the outgoing CJI should be appointed as his successor. The process of recommending the name is against the spirit of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court had directed Swami Om and Jain to deposit the fine within a month and said that the amount should be sent to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.