A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petitioner in the Supreme Court on Friday barely escaped having to pay ₹18 lakh for indulging in a “luxury litigation”.
A Vacation Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Hima Kohli initially asked the litigant to pay ₹18 lakh, that is, ₹1 lakh for every one of the 18 minutes the case took up. However, the court later, in its order, slashed the amount to ₹2 lakh on the request of the litigant’s counsel.
This case came up shortly after the same Bench had pronounced a judgment underlining how flippant PIL petitions both encroach into valuable judicial time and stall development work undertaken by the government. The judgment came in a challenge to redevelopment work undertaken by the Odisha government around the Puri Jagannath temple.
