The Delhi High Court has imposed costs of Rs 1 lakh on a litigant for filing a public interest litigation (PIL) against her relative to settle “personal scores”.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela rejected the PIL, which sought the removal of an “illegal and unauthorised construction”.
The bench observed that the petitioner claimed on the affidavit that she had no personal interest in the matter but suppressed the fact that the owner of the building was her cousin and there was a dispute between the families.
“It is unfortunate that the forum of PIL is being used to settle personal scores by suppressing the relationship between the parties,” the court remarked.
“The petitioner who is present in person has admitted the relationship with Respondent No. 5 in open court, and, therefore, as the Petitioner was certainly an interested person, the petition deserves to be dismissed with costs of Rs 1,00,000/- to be paid to the Army Battle Causalities Welfare Fund within 30 days from today”, the division bench said in its order dated November 3.
The division bench said a person who has not come with clean hands is not entitled to any relief. It said that in the present case, the petitioner has not approached this court with clean hands.
The bench warned the petitioner to be careful in the future and not file such frivolous petitions again by suppressing material facts.
“The petitioner’s conduct by giving a wrong statement in the writ petition duly supported by an affidavit amounts to committing contempt of court, however, as the petitioner is a lady, we are refraining ourselves from proceeding against the petitioner as cost has already been imposed,” the court said.
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