PIL 71/2009 BEFORE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR J CHELAMESWAR HON’BLE MR JUSTICE HRISHIKESH ROY Heard Mr T Son, learned counsel for the petitioner. The writ petition is filed with the prayer as follows purporting to be a public interest litigation :- In the premises aforesaid, it is, therefore, prayed that your Lordships would b e pleased to register this application as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and /or a social action litigation, hear the parties and after hearing the same be p leased to admit this application, call for the records of the case, issue a Rule calling upon the respondents to show cause as to why a writ in the nature of Qu o Warranto and or Mandamus and/or any other appropriate writ, order or direction of the like nature as prayed for by the petitioner should not be passed, issue direction to the Respondents:- a) directing the Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 to hand over the SPA scam of Rs.2. 00 crores of the State Ex-Chequer purportedly paid in the form of bills to the B enami Contractors by the Respondent Nos. 4, 5 and 6 at the behest of Respondent No. 7 to the Sate Police i.e. to say Special Investigating Team (SIT) or to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to cause investigation into the matter; b) to direct the Respondents Nos. 4,5 an 6 to produce the records including all relevant documents such as work orders, MBs (Measurement Books); c) to direct the Respondent Nos. 4,5 and 6 to realize/refund all the paymen ts made illegally to various Benami Contractors by way of deducting from their m onthly salaries; d) to direct the S.I.T./CBI to submit progress of the Investigation before this Hon’ble Court forthnight after registering case against the Respondent Nos . 4,5,6 and 7 under appropriate provisions of law; e) to restraining the Respondent Nos. 4,5 and 6 from making any further pa yment of false bills to the Benami contractors at the behest of the private Resp ondent No. 7; f) to direct the Respondent No. 5 (BDO) Pakk Pakke-Kessang and BDO (Seijosa ) Respondent No. 6 not to prepare bills and execute any works till further order or orders of this Hon’ble Court, and direct Respondent No. 7 not to interfere t he official affairs of the Respondent Nos. 4,5 and 6, and on perusal of records be pleased to- g) cause a Judicial Enquiry on suo motu by this Hon’ble Court to unearth th e misdeeds of the Respondent Nos. 5 and 6 at the behest of private Respondent No . 7, without the involvement of the Third Party verification of the execution o f works as provided under the Govt. Guidelines, and make inquiry into the allege d SPA Scam and squandering away of Rs.2.00 Crores without executing any works fo r the Infrastructure Development of SDP Headquarter at Seijosa-2009-10, and afte r showing cause or causes as might be shown, be pleased to make the Rule absolut e and/or to pass any other order/or orders as to your Lordships may deem fit and proper in the attending facts and circumstances of the case in order to give fu ll and complete relief to the people of 12-Pakke-Kessang Seijosa Assembly Consti tuency. The substance of the writ petition is that large amounts of public fund are misused/unaccounted for by the various respondents and the 7th respondent, w ho was a Member of Legislative Assembly in the State of Arunachal Pradesh on the date of filing the writ petition, was instrumental for such misuse. At the stage of admission Mr A Kashyap, learned counsel appearing for th e 7th respondent raised a preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the present public interest litigation. The learned counsel relied upon two jud gments of the Supreme Court reported in (1992) 4SCC 305 (Janata Dal vs. HS Chowd hary & Ors) and (2004) 3 SCC 349 (Ashok Kumar Pandey vs. State of W.B.) wherein the Supreme Court held as follows :- Be that as it may, it is needless to emphasise that the requirement of locus st andi of a party to a litigation is mandatory, because the legal capacity of the party to any litigation whether in private or public action in relation to any s pecific remedy sought for has to be primarily ascertained at the threshold. & While this Court has laid down a chain of notable decisions with all emphasis a t their command about the importance and significance of this newly developed do ctrine of PIL, it has also hastened to sound a red alert and a note of severe wa rning that Courts should not allow its process to be abused by a mere busy body or a meddlesome interloper or wayfarer or officious intervener without any inter est or concern except for personal gain or private profit or other oblique consi deration & [(1992) 4SCC 305] Though we spare no efforts in fostering and developing the laudable concept of PIL and extending our long arm of sympathy to the poor, the ignorant, the oppres sed and the needy, & yet we cannot avoid but express our opinion that while genu ine litigants with legitimate grievances relating to civil matters involving pro perties worth hundreds of millions of rupees and criminal cases in which persons sentenced to death facing gallows under untold agony and persons sentenced to l ife imprisonment .. are all standing in a long serpentine queue for years with the fond hope of getting into the Courts and having their grievances redressed, the busybodies, meddlesome interlopers, wayfarers or officious interveners havin g absolutely no public interest except for personal gain or private profit eithe r of themselves or as a proxy of others or for any other extraneous motivation o r for glare of publicity break the queue muffing their faces by wearing the mask of public interest litigation and get into the Courts by filing vexatious and f rivolous petitions and thus criminally waste the valuable time of the Courts and as a result of which the queue standing outside the doors of the Courts never m oves, which piquant situation creates frustration in the minds of the genuine li tigants and resultantly they loose faith in the administration of our judicial s ystem. [(2004) 3scc 349] The learned counsel for the 7th respondent more specifically emphasized on the fact that in view of the personal grievance against one of the respondent s (i.e. Respondent No.7) the petitioner is not entitled to pursue a public inter est litigation. The learned counsel pointed out from the writ petition that the petition er on his own admission has a personal grievance against the 7th respondent here in. The relevant portion of the pleading in this regard reads as follows :- A man like Shri Techi Hemo, who started his life solely depending upon the limi ted and fixed salary of his wife who is a Assistant Teacher (A/T) at Seijosa Pri mary School and started his political careers and lost thrice in the election wa s a deserted person but by dint of the petitioner, the Respondent No.7 ultimatel y got elected in 2004 Assembly election and became the MLA and now after becomin g MLA, the private respondent No.7 amassed huge wealth and indulging in highest degree of corruption, causing grave injustice to the people of the 12 Pakke Kess ang Seijosa (ST) Assembly Constituency due to the conspiracy and open indulgence of the official Respondent Nos.4, 5 and 6. It is obvious from the above extracted portion of the pleading that the writ petitioner as well as the 7th respondent are parted friends and have some p ersonal disputes. In the background of the above mentioned facts we are of the opinion tha t the preliminary objection is well founded in the light of the law laid down by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the PIL is dismissed at the admission stage.