How Supreme Court dealt with frivolous PILs in 2022

The Supreme Court of India, in 2022, was privy to many frivolous public interest litigation (PIL) petitions, a trend which has continued unabated for the last many years. .Only two weeks ago, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said that the top Constitutional court of the country should not hear frivolous PILs.While many important orders and directions were passed by the Court in PILs, the Court was also harsh on misconceived or motivated PILs or those filed to garner publicity.Below are some PILs which drew the ire of the Court in 2022. .A bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar earlier this month dismissed a PIL that sought the removal of what it alleged to be 'wrong history' about the Taj Mahal, from history textbooks.The judges took exception to the prayers made in the plea, including one seeking a direction to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to determine the actual age of the monument in Agra. "See your prayer. Remove wrong facts? You will decide that?" the Court remarked.The same Bench had in October dismissed a plea seeking the opening of certain rooms of the Taj Mahal. The PIL was filed saying that opening and examining the rooms will put to rest claims that Taj Mahal was actually a Shiva temple, 'Tejo Mahalaya'. Justice Shah said that the plea was a 'publicity interest litigation'. .A senior auditor at Punjab National Bank (PNB), Onkar Sharma, moved the top court to drop the words 'Punjab' and 'Baroda' from the official names of Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda respectively. He argued in his plea that folks in remote areas were left unsure if the banks were regional or national/international banks.The bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli was unimpressed, and dismissed the petition. The Court made it clear that the plea was frivolous and the prayers fell within the domain of policy."What? And name it what? You also want to change the cricket team of Baroda or Bank of Baroda. It is not upto us or our remit to change name of banks," CJI Chandrachud remarked."What [public] interest? Are they stopping anyone else than Punjabis from opening account," Justice Kohli asked..A similar PIL to rename Bombay High Court as Maharashtra High Court also met a similar fate. A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Vikram Nath had last month dismissed the plea. "Stand of all the respondents is that present petition is not maintainable as it is within the exclusive domain of the Parliament to deal with the questions raised in this petition. We accept this stand," the order noted. .An LLM student moved the top court seeking abolition of reservation for lower caste communities. A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha proceeded to berate the petitioner, and refused to entertain the plea when it came up for hearing earlier this month. "We will impose a lakh cost if you do not withdraw. Petition is an abuse of the process of the law," the Court said. The petitioner then chose to withdraw the petition. Another law student filed a PIL seeking the implementation of a uniform dress code in educational institutions across the country. When the matter came up for hearing in September, a bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia refused to entertain the same."This case should not come to the court. We cannot have a uniform school uniform across the country," the bench remarked.The petitioner then withdrew the PIL..The Supreme Court in December rejected a PIL seeking a declaration that founder of Satsang, Sree Sree Thakur Anukulchandra be declared "parmatma'.A bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar also imposed costs of ₹1 lakh on the petitioner for filing the "misconceived" plea. The Court said that while the petitioner is free to consider Sree Sree Thakur Anukulchandra as God, the same cannot be imposed on others in a secular country..In June, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Hima Kohli dismissed a PIL against construction activities around the Puri Jagannath Temple, and said that the plea was a publicity interest litigation and such petitions need to be nipped in the bud, since they waste the time of the courts.The judges imposed a cost of ₹1 lakh on each of the petitioners, to be paid to State of Odisha within a month of the judgment."Can state be denied to make necessary arrangements to provide basic facilities to devotees? The answer is an emphatic no," the top court stated..Earlier this month, a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud while hearing a PIL had deprecated the tendency to equate religious processions with communal riots.The Court, therefore, dismissed a PIL seeking regulation of religious processions, opining that the prayers were not judicially manageable as the subject matter (law and order) is a State subject."Why do we always want to portray that religious festivals are the time for riots? Let us look at the good which happens in country. See Maharashtra during Ganesh Puja, lakhs gather, but there are no riots," the CJI said..No piece on PILs in India would be complete without a brief relook at those filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay.Upadhyay has more than 100 of his PILs pending before the top court.The apex court has passed important directions in many of those PILs.However, the Court did take a dim view of some of his PILs in 2022. In November, a bench led by CJI Chandrachud took an unfavourable view of a plea by Upadhyay seeking directions to double the number of judges in High Courts and district courts."Every evil you see does not merit a PIL. Your panacea does not warrant a remedy. Try getting judges to fill up the existing vacancies and then you will realise how difficult it is," the CJI remarked.The Court had further said that these were all "populist measures", and explained the difficulty in just filling up existing vacancies in High Courts."This is like parliament saying in an Act that all matters will be disposed of within 6 months. It does not happen like this ... We will make you pay infrastructural costs for making us hear your PILs. This is public time and we are not hearing genuine matters," CJI Chandrachud cautioned..A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka refused to entertain a PIL by Upadhyay seeking a direction to the Law Commission to prepare a comprehensive policy or legislation to deal with population control.The judges reasoned that such a direction could not be issued by the Court, and rejected Upadhyay's argument that while India only had 2 per cent of the world's land, it had 20 per cent of its population."One day population cannot be wiped out. How can even Law Commission be directed?" Justice Kaul asked..A bench led by Justice Kaul termed 'atrocious' and 'senseless' a plea through which ₹75 lakh was sought as compensation from YouTube for 'distracting' his while he had been preparing for his exams for joining the Madhya Pradesh Police."If you do not like an advertisement do not watch. While he chose to watch the advertisement, it is his prerogative. These kind of petitions are utter waste of judicial time," the Court sated in its order, and imposed costs of ₹25,000 on the petitioner-in-person..A PIL that sought the ouster of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the ground that he had played 'fraud' on the electorate by getting into a post-poll alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in August this year, was dismissed by a bench of Justices MR Shah and MM Sundresh.The top court had said that post-poll alliance is allowed by the anti-defection law and the 10th schedule of the Constitution, subject to certain conditions..In October, a plea seeking deletion of negative remarks and references about Ayurveda from the Wikipedia article on the ancient Indian medical system, was dismissed by a bench of Justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha. The judges orally suggested to the petitioners that they can themselves edit the article in question. .In September, the top court dismissed a PIL filed by retired IAS officer and lawyer KG Vanzara seeking a direction to the Central government to notify Sanskrit as the national language.A bench of Justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari had said that the right forum for considering the issue raised in the plea is the parliament and not the court..In August, the top court imposed ₹5 lakhs costs on an NGO that had filed a PIL with a prayer to utilise the Supertech twin towers in NOIDA towards a public purpose like a university or hospital instead of demolishing them as per the top court's August 2021 judgment."The purpose of the petition is evidently to prevent the implementation of the decision of this Court and the directions which have been issued. The invocation of the jurisdiction under Article 32 is a manifest abuse of the process. Hence, besides the dismissal of the petition, an order for the award of exemplary costs is warranted. This Court must award costs where its jurisdiction is invoked by frivolous and motivated petitions," the Court said..In May, a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, AS Bopanna and BR Gavai imposed costs of ₹50,000 on two petitioners who challenged the ban in Delhi on diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years.The judges said that the PIL was frivolous, and amounted to an abuse of the process of law.