Indian adjudicatory pantheon, and as a novel heterodoxy, has been hated and heralded, doubted and debated

Public Interest Litigation (P. I. L.) as a process is nascent, yet phenomenal, arrival on the Indian adjudicatory pantheon, and as a novel heterodoxy, has been hated and heralded, doubted and debated, and in the bargain, the heated exchange had driven a bitter wedge of heritage versus heresay among the higher judicial brotherhood, with the result that fratricidal trends are threatening to wreck the pharmacopial hopes of this burgeoning democracy of forensic remedies. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and if this suicidal fate accelerated unwittingly by the die-hards on the high level, were to overtake the echelons of Justice the culprits would be the Judges themselves. History, certainly, will not forgive them for this delinquency; Jesus Christ had even these quarrelling legalists in view when he warned;
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have done, and now to leave the other undone.”
(Bible – New Testament: St. Mathew)
2. Socially inspired, people – oriented, procedures of justice must push aside the dotage system which currently obstructs, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, the progressive arts of, innovative justicing, tuned to the conditions of the common man. The grave – stone of the old, and the corner – stone of the new, must be laid, change being a categorical imperative. In the larger perspective of history, the goals and means of justice, so integral to the Struggle for Freedom, are not the gifts of judges nor of legislatures but the compulsions of the human masses hungry for social justice. Immanuel Kant wrote, that is, apt here;
“Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is categorical …………………. . This imperative may be called that of Morality. “
(Immanuel Kant – Transl. T. K. Abbott)
3. I regard P. I. L. and companion movements, as linked to the historic liberative process of remedial jurisprudence, at the service of the eternal tenants of an extortionate system.” But this new P. I. L. missile has its own potential for menace and mischief and may prove counter – productive, when the buttons are pressed by untrained fingers or unimaginative minds or by wolves in sheep’s clothing. Office, however high, does not, without more, invest expertise or empathy on the incumbent. A course on P. I. Law is useful for judges and lawyers, right now, when the new processual jurisprudence, necessitous for Third World disabilities is drawing. The constitutional concern and compassionate culture enwombed in Art. 39 – A, is alien to judicialese and must be infected into the process and personnel. The hypnotic allure of courtroom law is gone, and, with it the spell of rules and forms, and mock fights and mimic shows, we flatteringly call “equal justice under the law”. The disease of the judicial system is not “overload” and consequent collapse as apologists argue, but wrong track, wrong rules, wrong participants and wrong destination, away from our nation’s tryst with social justice destiny.
4. The radical innovations shaking up institutional conservation are not peculiar to India, even America’s melting pot of judicial justice has gone thro’ this experience. Britain, with Law Lords like Denning and Scarman, and before them Lord Atkin, has moulded, in some measure, its ground rules to match the social challenges. These new dimensions became historic, changes in the U. S., proving that essential mutations needed for institutional survival occur, when the battle of the tenses, forces the pace and process.
5. Jerold S. Auerbach, writing on “Justice Without Law?” explains the experiments with truth the American Judicial Process made when confronted by social injustices, not as Good Samaritan measures but as midwifery under social compulsions of the times. That is the dialectics of socio – legal change. It is instructive to observe the scenario, and so I quote;
“Ever since the turn of the century, however, law reformers have worried incessantly about the capacity of the American legal system to deliver on its promises. Expectations of equal justice were nurtured but they could not be fulfilled in a society where economic and political resources were unequally distributed. Constricted by political and legal binders, the progressive reform version still sets narrow limits to the possibilities for change. The more inadequacies legal institutions demonstrate, the more legal remedies are provided to cure them. Administrative agencies, legal and societies, and small – claims courts endure; but so do the problems they were designed to alleviate. Tinkering with the legal machinery by adding more lawyers and courts has not removed the disparities of wealth and power that produce its malfunctions. Periodic redefinitions of lawyers’ ethical responsibilities are a reflexive response to public criticism, not a remedy for the defects of the adversary process. The problems of injustice were passed along, a progressive legacy of failure, to a subsequent generation of law reformers, who again have turned to alternative processes to rescue the legal system from the enduring defects of limited access, high cost, excessive delay, and congestive overload.
“Justice Without Law?” by J. S. Auerbach, pp. 115 / 116.
“…………………………Courts had tried to compensate, to no avail. Their procedures, even lawyers conceded, are ossified to the point, priced to the level, and slow to the degree where they cannot flexibly assist disputants in resolving their everyday disputes.” A “tidal wave of litigation” threatened to engulf the judiciary, where all personal grievances and social issues seemed to be converted into legal claims. Amid “the growing intrusion of law on every aspect of American society” courts were asked to assume a “backbreaking burden” of supervision and regulation for which they were institutionally unsuited. Indeed, they had come to serve, “not only as lighthouses for the hopeful, but also as lightning rods for the frustrated.” Lawyers agreed that there was “too much law, too little justice,” a condition all too likely to elevate popular dissatisfaction with the judicial system to dangerous levels.”
“………………….. The Supreme Court, at least since the Brown desegregation decision in 1954, had demonstrated unprecedented sensitivity to the legal rights of disadvantaged citizens, with other federal courts trailing in its activist wake ( and occasionally prodding). As Courts impeded discrimination based on race, gender, or wealth, a generation of Americans looked to a vigorous, vigilant judiciary to enforce the Bill of Rights. The judiciary developed procedural safeguards in criminal law, protected the rights of the indigent, and expanded the right to counsel. New rules – superseding old notions of who could sue or be sued, and about what – reduced the immunity of public officials and enlarged litigation opportunities for victims of discrimination, harassment, and official law less ness. Judicial activism in pursuit of egalitarian goals was complemented by various initiatives in the public and private sectors; a new conception of “public – interest” law; a federal legal services program; class – action law suits; litigation as an instrument to try open closed institutions (prisons, schools, hospitals) to public scrutiny and government regulation. Within little more than a decade, legal representation and litigation had been transformed into vital ingredients of social justice in the modern state.”
5. (Auerbach, Supra, pp. 121 – 122)
“……………………….. Not only had the judiciary encouraged the assertion of legal claims in the interest of securing equal rights; judicial activism also thrust courts into a controversial supervisory role within institutions that had defaulted on their obligations to provide for weak, stigmatized, or incarcerated Americans. The more courts filled that “vacuum of effective authority”, however, the more they were criticized for over reaching the proper limits of their authority. On the assumption that “less courts do, the more they can do well,” courts were admonished to narrow their jurisdictional ranges as not to meddle in social problems (employment discrimination, segregation) with remedies (affirmative action, busing) that carried them beyond their institutional competence. A conservative political blacklash stung the judiciary for its aggressive protection of minority rights, equal opportunity, and extension of due – process guarantees.”
Ibid: page 122.
6. The Warren era in America is best understood in the perspective of dialectical materialism, rather than as the performance of an accidentally progressive judicial leadership. Indian judicial activism and novel methodologies, likewise, are not the merciful gifts of some judges but the procedural resultant of social forces beyond the brethren’s kin. Forensic serendipity is, in the final analysis, a response of the State to the urges of militant society.
7. The thrust of my thesis is that court justice to the common people must be organized along correct lines so that the Rule of Law may, amidst encircling injustice, breakthrough to social justice not produce compulsions by resistance. Centuries of silent submission to iniquity must now end through judicial writ.
8. Small reforms are often the enemies of greater reforms, being but formal finery leaving intact the structure of the status quo ante. What we need, in our Third World trauma, is radical change guided intelligently towards the goal of social justice in widest commonalty spread. Lord Macaulay, speaking on the Reformation bill more than 150 years ago, observed:
“Agitations of the public mind, too deep and long continued as those which we have witnessed, do not end in nothing. In peace or in convulsion, by the law or in spite of the law, through Parliament, or over the Parliament, reform must be carried. Therefore, be content to guide the movement which you cannot stop.”
(Speech on the Reform Bill,
September 20, 1831)
9. Surely, Public Interest Law and Litigation, being a challenge to the status quo, granting a visa to the masses, militantly demanding social injustice from the hallowed halls of court, must inevitably produce resistance from the professions which, in their praxis, are conspiracies against the laity. P. I. L. as a movement, cannot be arrested and social action groups cannot be suppressed even if some judges, administrators and establishment men oppose. All great truths begin as blasphemies but heresies which work for social good are assimilated as heritage. Therefore, there is hope for this new process which is fuelled by the ferment of the masses. Victor Hugo once said:
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.”
10. The Judicial Opposition must know that the time has come for strategies of people’s justice, court or no court.
11. I have often argued for Public Interest Litigation as a necessary forensic mass movement, not as a freak judicial wonder. It is also my case that the strength of the movement depends not on court rulings but on people’s backing, legislatively converted into solid statutory authority.
12. Today, despite judicial pronouncements, Benches disagree and the best evidence of this conflict is the skeptical, yet sensible formulation by Justice Venkataramiah and Fazal Ali of 10 questions for the authoritative consideration of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. These questions cannot be ignored, or by – passed, but must be faced squarely or resolved legislatively. I set them out as they are revelatory of the current confusion and the need for normative clarity;
(1) Should this Court take notice of such letters addressed by individuals by post enclosing some paper cuttings and take action on them suo motto except where the complaint refers to deprivation of liberty of any individual?
(2) Should such letters be sent to the Supreme Court Legal Aid Society by the Registrar with a request to examine whether there is any prima facie case which requires to be considered by this Court and if there is such a case to file a formal petition against appropriate parties after collecting necessary material?
(3) Can a stranger to a cause, be he a journalist, social worker, advocate or an association of such persons initiate action before the Court in matters alleged to be involving public interest or should a petitioner have some interest in common with others whose rights are infringed by some governmental action or in action in order to establish his Locus Standi to make such a complaint?
4 (a) Can the Court take action on such letters though there is no prima facie case of infringement of any fundamental right?
(b) Even in cases where a fundamental right is stated to have been infringed, can this Court take action on such letters where there is no allegation that the person concerned is kept in illegal custody?
(5) Can this Court take action on such letters in matters for which remedy can be had in ordinary civil, criminal or revenue courts or other offices on the ground that a number of people are affected? To be precise, if the complaint contains an allegation of encroachment of lands of one group or tribe by any another group or tribe, can this Court direct the District Magistrate or the District Judge to enquire into the matter and to make a report to this Court? Or should the parties be given necessary legal aid and referred to a legal court having jurisdiction over the matter?
6. Can this Court take action on letters addressed to it where the facts disclosed are not sufficient to take action? Should these letters be treated differently from other regular petitions filed into this Court in this regard and should the District Magistrate or the District Judge be asked to enquire and make a report to this Court to ascertain whether there is any for further action?
7. If after investigation, it is found that by such a letter a baseless complaint had been made, should not costs be imposed on the person who had written it? Can he be treated differently from others?
8. Should a petitioner who has an interest in common with others whose rights are alleged to have been infringed be exempted from paying court fees and from all other relevant rules of the Supreme Court when he writes a letter to this Court complaining about such infringement? Should all the relevant rules be suspended when a complaint is made through a letter?
9. If this Court can take action on such letters in such informal way, why should not the High Courts and other courts, authorities and officers in India also act in the same way in all matters?
10. Would such informality not lead to greater identification of the Court with the cause that it would be when a case involving the same type of cause is filed in the normal way?
13. Even a Bench, known for its pro – P. I. L. slant, agreed about the need for judicial caution and recently uttered a warning:
“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 under the guise of redressing a public grievance it does not encroach upon the sphere reserved by the Constitution to the executive and the legislature.” “If the executive is not carrying out any duty laid upon it by the Constitution or the Law, the Court can certainly require the executive to carry out such duty and this is precisely what the Court does when it entertains public interest litigation.” The judgement added that, if the poor and the underprivileged were deprived of their social and economic entitlements, the Court” certainly can and must intervene” to stop the exploitation or injustice.
14. When the Court passes any orders in the Public Interest Litigation, it does so not with a view to mocking at legislature or executive authority or in a spirit of confrontation but with a view to enforcing the Constitution and the law……………………………. But at the same time, the court cannot usurp the functions assigned to the executive and the legislature”, the judgement clarified:
“It also stressed the role of letter petitions. This is an “innovative strategy” evolved by the court for providing easy access to justice to the weaker sections and it is a powerful tool in the hands of public – spirited individuals and social action groups.”
(Indian Express, 22.4.85)
15. Anti Public Interest Litigation Judges and their extra – judicial patrons are scared by the mob and are fighting a last ditch battle to end the ‘populist” entry of the masses into the esoteric of legal justice. But the writing on the wall is clear although “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
16. Informality per se is not violative of fair procedure. Even so, broad guide – lines are required to be observed by the Court lest it should be derailed into unwitting error or injustice. An anonymous letter or a pseudonymous communication, if a hoax or howler may bring the Court into ridicule unless its jurisdictional exercise is preceded by some preliminary verification about the variety of the grievances. Access to justice must be liberal but not frivolous, easy but not irresponsible. Therefore, some cautionary rules are necessary before action follows upon informal communications. Those in dire distress and extreme disability may reach the Court without restrictive formalities. Once the court cognizes the grievance, there must be some machinery which may not be fail – safe, but must give prima facie assurance that the litany of woes is not a pack of lies, not tremendous trifles painted as horrendous crimes nor blackmailing tactics by motivated “P. I. L. – professionals. It is essential that the fundamentals enshrined in Article 14, 21 and 39 (A) should not be frustrated by judicial imbeciles not brazenly ignored by the arrogant or orthodox Judges. If the jurisprudence of public interest law were codified, all judges will obey. The law governs Judges too otherwise, the Court must be saved from the Judges.
17. To ascertain whether a prima – facie case for action exists, it may be worthwhile to have referral bodies, viz. social action groups with credentials or other approved organizations which may be asked to verify facts on the court’s authority so that any officious busybody may not walk into Court and waste its time. Let me hasten to add that no official censorship of public interest bodies should be allowed? That benumbs, even kills, the fearless processes of voluntary agencies. Should we not have a net – work or organs and organizations, socially sensitive and engaged in public work and welfare activities, approved in some form or other, which may enjoy entitlement to invoke the P. I. L. jurisdiction of the Court?
18. When the country clamours for abolition of court – fee which is a kind of state business in justice nothing is lost by non – insistence on payment of court – fee in P. I. L. cases. Similarly, when litigants are suffocated by formalism and legalism, exotic, and expensive, nothing is lost by relaxing rigid rules and accepting in – formal communications. Procedural asphyxiation is anathema for people’s remedies. When fundamental rights are in peril procedural literalism is contra – constitutional. Even so, some norms, some forms, some minimal scrutiny, some preliminary investigation by a social action body, may be appropriate, taking care to see that justice is not stiffed in the process.
19. Most important of it is the danger of inexperienced, indiscreet, or embarrassingly naive use of judicial power whereby public interest litigation becomes a menace to Public Administrative of an illusion for the people. Judicial usurpation erodes constitutional division of powers among the different instrumentalities. Our country has not entrusted governance to justices or legislation to Courts. It is therefore, of critical significance that the Judges keep within constitutional bounds but act without fear or favour and with commitment to the people when injustice plays havoc with their rights, even if the Executive and the Legislature sanction them.
20. P. I. L. jurisprudence has yet to grow into democratic maturity so that the jurisdiction may not stultify the service – oriented status of the judicature. Judicial pusillanimity and ‘robed’ audacity are both grave risks. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” But judicial experiments cannot be scared away by shouting that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. T. H. Huxley’s wisdom is assurance enough:
“If a little knowledge is dangerous where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?
(On Elementary Instruction
In Physiology, 1877)
21. `Let us take a look at a few instances of P. I. L. in action and search for parameters. The dynamism of this judicial development cannot be strait – jacketed without mayhem to its healthy growth. Even so, when illiterates and miserables hopefully ask for relief from oppression, action backed by judicial authority is necessary. Merely forwarding such petitions to concerned authorities for appropriate relief is to study the power. A court is not a post office but a sovereign power which commands and claims compliance. Courts order, not entreat. So, judicial writ on people’s supplication, if they justify legal action, must not be mere meek recommendation, but dignified directives to be disobeyed at one’s peril. Unfortunately, many judges betray weakness and frustrate expectations. I know some ministers, in arrogant disrespect, publicly insult judges as being busy issuing writs regarding mosquitoes and flies. Read Ratlam Municipality case and we then know, the punitive potential the courts command, reinforced by the mandates in the constitution and the laws. What we want is not judicial mendicancy before the bureaucracy but the fear that violation will involve coercive consequences.
22. Pro bono litigation, in its awakened immensely and people factor, is liable to be misused in many ways. Every common cause is not people’s cause. If a hundred members of big business houses, wearing the P. I. L. mask, move the court thro’ letters or telegrams or otherwise and ask for judicial writ to reduce recently hiked air fare or to introduce air – conditioned railway travel facilities or helicopter services between downtown and suburban centers or to resist restrictions on multi – storeyed concrete canyons for industrial offices, there may be ment in the litigation but it cannot qualify as P. I. L. The millions in misery are qualitatively different from lachrymose millionaires, litigatively speaking. The first category can afford sophisticated rules and hire five – star advocacy and win if the law is clearly on their side. The less miserables, on the other hand are eligible for all procedural indulgence and judicial liberalism, relaxing rigidities of formalities and even helping collect facts and secure amicus curiae services to make up for legal illiteracies and other disabilities.
23. In short P. I. L. jurisprudence and the correlative compassionate jurisdiction are a judicial dimension of social justice and a forensic expression of the nation’s promise ‘to wipe every tear from every eye’. Social conscience shifts the center of gravity of judicial – political power. Once we “the People of India” take over, power moves towards the masses and this jural imperative must be mirrored in the court processes. There will be sound and fury against this social justice connotation. But in the great strides of political march – and law is an expression of this transformation, not abstract justice in isolation – history tells us that “the dogs may bark but the caravan will pass”.
24. Now to another disquieting branch. The shocking Delhi massacres, following upon the savage assassination of the late Prime Minister, led to a demand for judicial enquiry into the macabre events, which, when turned down by the Executive, came to court and became challenge to judicial jurisdiction. Likewise, though under dissimilar provocation, the police forces running berserk and communal riots rocking Ahmedabad, petitions were moved in the Gujrat High Court for a judicial enquiry into the “excesses”, which had been rejected by the State Government. Judges may disagree on the discretionary exercise of power in a critical situation but must be agreed on its existence lest there should be confusion on the fundamentals of jurisdiction itself. And yet, absent parliamentary mapping out of the scope and extent of judge power in dilemma there is likely to be chaos in the cosmos currently which will demoralize the consumers of justice.
25. The Delhi High Court, after swinging from “yes” to “no” and an ugly public display of discord, ruled that even when we mass violation of human rights was alleged and State inaction or abetment of crime was imputed, a public enquiry into this functional failure of the Executive, in fire – fighting to protect fundamental rights was out of bounds for “robed” power and entirely for the State’s assessment of expediency and political discretion to show the green and red signal. The larger power under the Commissions of Enquiry Act, 1952, may not inhibit the prerogative power of the court to watch dog, monitor and redress wherever the guaranteed great rights are gored and helpless human masses demand habilitative justice or protective writ. If this sentinel jurisdiction is real, policing the police and overseeing State omission and commission come within its orbit. Sometimes, the court may, as an ancillary measure in aid of or effectively to appreciate the facts and mould in writ, direction or order or even as a final relief to enable the citizen to assert his fundamental rights or remedy the injuries, appoint a commission acting under its control and armed with its authority, to enquire and report. Of course, the power is available when the State is the alleged delinquent and no ready alternative remedy is available. If two mafia gangs fight, the court does not enter the scene with a commission of enquiry save where the State resorts to discriminatory sides or partisan silence or functional arbitrariness. The Gujrat High Court, in a tense situation charged with fatal tumult and alleged police tantrums and lawless excesses, responded, after hearing the State, by issuing a Commission for fact – finding. How jurisprudentially delicate and difficult this judicial power is may be guessed from the excerpts given below from a newspaper report of the recent Supreme Court proceedings in an appeal relating to the Gujrat violence where the High Court had issued a Commission of Inquiry to visit and report about the horrendous happenings:
“The Gujrat Government which questioned the jurisdiction of courts to order inquiries into cases of riots on Wednesday sought a day’s time from the Supreme Court to rethink its stategy.”
26. The State Government had to face severe strictures from the judges for challenging the High Court order setting up two inquiry commissions after the riots in Ahmedabad when police allegedly ran amuck and cut off power and water and attacked women and children in their houses.
27. The Supreme Court itself, after tell – tale vacillation and brave talk reflected over the riddle and left the problem to be resolved by the High Court itself. Wasted labour, lost opportunity, and we are back to square one.
28. No hard and fast rule can be laid down regarding the court’s mode of exercise of jurisdiction, especially in emergency situations or where government hostility may well spoil the game. Judicial strategy, if motivated or ill – timed or aggravatory of the crises, may well boomer and, But, the extraordinary power itself tho’ exceptional, is unexceptionable.
29. But tactical blunders by a hallowed authority which has no public accountability and no liability for the public damage it may inflict by wilful or unwitting error will result in administrative, parliamentary or popular reaction. Restraint is of the greatest moment when courts use rare powers. Supposing the commissions of the High Court while taking photographs or interrogating people in the midst of crises of violence get shot by extremists in Assam or Punjab or Gujrat or Bombay, strident criticism of this bizarre power as a remedy which magnifies the malady may rise, and counsel and their romantic rhetoric about judicial magic will hardly avail. When people find judges anti – governmentally prejudiced or poor generals in the battle for social justice, the myth of judicial neutrality and the truth of robed bias, so long as they are safe, are hard realities. Where the “brethren” are politicized and “personalised” in their approach, in temperate in their tongues and pen and survive on a halo rapidly being liquidated by judicial arbitrariness on and off the bench, the institution loses authority.
30 Two golden rules alone may be safely stated regarding P. I. L. First, the court has jurisdiction, “even amid the clash of arms”, to issue processes, including commissions for collection of facts, as essential steps of justice in fulfilling itself as the sentinel on the qui vive regarding, citizens, basic right. Second, the greatest care and vigilance, responsibility and sensitivity are needed before the extraordinary jurisdiction in P. I. L. goes into action. In the last analysis, “the Golden Rule is that there are no golden rules”, and while excess may be the enemy of success, necessary access and exercise are of the essence of judicial presence and functional praxis. What is needed is more research in the field of P. I. L. jurisprudence and courses in these developing branches. A common coalition of ignorance, arrogance and authority is a frequent phenomenon in politics but is gaining dangerous access to judistics (Judicial power politics). Judicial exudation in the social science of people’s justice is implicit in the constitutional creed that courts are the defenders of Right against Might, of freedom against tyranny. We are passing thro’ formative days of a new jurisprudence and precedents in furtherance of people’s freedom must now be created.
If you wish our Republic to fill the bill where
“A man may speak the thing he will.
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent”.
It is time to think of “What Next in the Law? Public Interest Litigation is on the agenda.

A. LOCUS STANDI AND STANDING OF PETITIONERS WHO HAVE NO CAUSE OF ACTION IN PERSON:-
1. ` That Judges Appointment and Transfer cases were dealt with in S. P. Gupta and others versus Union of India and others, A. I. R. 1982 S. 149, 1981 (Supp) S. C. C. 87. In this case, it was laid down by the Supreme Court that if any person or determine class of persons is by reason of poverty, helplessness or disability or socially or economically disadvantaged position, unable to approach the Court for relief, any member of the public can maintain an application for an appropriate direction, order or writ in the High Court under Article 226 and in case of breach of any fundamental right of such person to determine class of persons, in this Court (i.e. Supreme Court) under Article 32 seeking judicial redress for the legal wrong or injury caused to such person or determine class of persons.
Their Lordships observed as to Locus Standi of the petitioners that it may “now be taken as well established that where a legal wrong or a legal injury is caused to a person or to a determinate class of persons by reasons of violation of any Constitutional or legal provision or any burden is imposed in contravention of any constitutional or legal provisions or without authority of law any such legal wrong or legal injury or illegal burden is threatened.
Where the weaker section of the community are concerned such as under trial prisoners languishing in jails without a trial, inmates of the protective homes in Agra or Harizan workers engaged in road construction in the district of Ajmer, who are living in poverty and destitution, who are barely making out a miserable existence with their sweats and toils who are helpless victims of an exploitative society and who do not have an easy access to justice, the Court will not insist on a regular writ petition to be filed by the public spirited individual exposing their cause and seeking relief for them. This Court will readily respond to a letter addressed to such individual acting pro bono publico – it is true that there are rules made by this Court prescribing the procedure for moving this Court for relief under Article 32 and they require various formalities to be gone through by a person seeking approach to this Court. It must not be forgotten that procedure is but a hand – maiden of justice and the cause of justice can never be allowed to be thwarted by any procedural technicalities. The Court would therefore unhesitantly and without the slightest qualms of conscience case aside the technical rules of procedure in the exercise of its dispensing power and treat the letter of the public minded individual as a writ petition and act upon it. Today a vast revolution is taking place in the judicial process, the theatre of the law is fast changing and the problems of the poor are coming to the fore front. The Court has to innovate new methods and device new strategies for the purpose of providing access to justice to large masses of people who are denied their basic human right and to whom freedom and liberty have no meaning. The only way in which this can be done is by entertaining writ petitions and even letters from public spirited individuals seeking judicial redress for the benefit of persons who have suffered a legal wrong or a legal injury or whose constitutional or legal right has been violated but who by reason of their poverty or socially or economically disadvantaged position are unable to approach the Court for relief, it is in this spirit that the Court has been entertaining letters for judicial redress and treating them as writ petitions and the hope and trust that the High Courts of the country will also adopt this pro - active goal oriented approach. But we must hasten to make it clear that the individual who moves the Court for judicial redress in cases of this kind must be acting bona fide with a view to vindicating the cause of justice and if it is acting for personal gains or private profit or out of political motivation or other oblique consideration, the Court should not allow itself to be activised at the instance of such person and must reject his application at the threshold, whether it be in the form of a letter addressed to the Court or even in the form of a regular writ petition filed in Court”.
2. That the petitioner most humbly submits himself and states on oath that he is not acting for any personal gains or private profit or out of any political motivation or other oblique consideration.