PILs with commercial interest might be disallowed, hints the Supreme Court

The honourable Supreme Court has hinted that it could disallow public interest litigations (PILs) that involve commercial interests so that proxy corporate wars from can be prevented in the court.

In the past, PILs have resulted in historic court orders that left considerable business impacts, for example group cancellation of telecom spectrum and coal block allocations.

After it disallows commercial interest PILs, the court might restrict its dealing to selective PILs, which would be selected after a rigorous scrutiny process. The decision was hinted at by a three-judge bench, including Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices AK Sikri and R Banumathi. The bench was hearing a petition on the acquisition of Infotel Telecom by Reliance Industries.

"In the next phase of development (in PILs), we must ensure that that the process is not abused, only used in the fittest of cases. It must be an institutional mechanism," Justice Thakur told ET.

He further suggested that a credible interface between the judicial process and the civil society is needed.

"How do we prevent misuse of the judicial process to settle scores, commercial rivalries," the CJI asked Prashant Bhushan, the advocate for the petitioner, NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL).

"You must satisfy us that the information, that your process of verifying information which comes to you, must be credible. We won't allow the process to be taken for a ride," Justice Thakur told Bhushan after he told the court that the NGO had so far filed 50 cases.

"We must be convinced that your petition is genuine. Otherwise (Harish) Salve (who appeared for Reliance) will say you are settlings scores," the CJI said. The case has been reserved by the court for the final order.

Bhushan, on the other hand, said that public interest is a hige factor in deciding whether or not to file a case in court, and that commercial interest might be incidental.

To this, the CJI rejected the view and said, "When so much time is spent on them (such cases) and litigation costs are so high, we must devise ways to keep out commercial fights and business rivalries. We may end up spending precious time to only draw a blank."

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