Kejriwal's allegations: HC dismisses PIL seeking probe against Vadra

The Allahabad High Court on Thursday dismissed a PIL by a local activist seeking a probe into allegations of irregular land dealings against Robert Vadra levelled by IAC member Arvind Kejriwal.

The petition, filed by Nutan Thakur on October 9 last year, was dismissed by the court's Lucknow bench of Justice Uma Nath Singh and Justice Virendra Kumar Dixit.

"We are thus not inclined to entertain this PIL which appears to have been filed with some oblique motive. That being so, there is absolutely no merit and hence it deserves to be dismissed while recording a note of caution against filing of such petitions," the bench observed.

Citing the judgments of the Supreme Court it said the petitioner has "utterly failed to make out a case so as to seek the indulgence of the court for exercising extraordinary jurisdiction" under Article 226 of the Constitution.

"There is no proper affirmation and verification of her affidavit filed in support of the writ petition as required vide the provisions of Order 19 rule 3 CPC," it said.

The bench observed that the social activists, who were said to have released the news items have not come forward to file their affidavits to prove the authenticity of the documents sought to be placed reliance by the petitioner.

"So is the case with the media persons who have printed or telecast the news items. There is no positive assertion by the petitioner regarding the infringement of her any legal right, nor is there any allegation of violation of any specific statutory or constitutional provisions," it said.

"There is also no legal obligation upon the respondent as claimed by the petitioner to hold inquiry of any kind into the transactions said to have been entered between two private entities. In this background, we are also not supposed to pierce the corporate veil to make roving inquiry as to the nature of transactions and the attending circumstances so as to find out the element of quid-pro-quo as alleged in this petition," it said.

On behalf of Thakur, her lawyer Ashok Pandey had submitted that as the matter relates to higher-ups, only the Prime Minister's Office would be able to conduct an inquiry.

The bench had on November 29 last year reserved its order on the maintainability of the petition.

The bench said the apex court as well as this high court had consistently cautioned against entertaining PIL filed by unscrupulous persons for achieving oblique motive on the basis of wild and reckless allegations.

"It is also a settled law that a writ of mandamus cannot be sought without disclosing a legal right or infringement of any specific statutory or constitutional provisions or non-performance of legal obligations as have been held in the decisions by the apex court," it added.

During the last hearing, Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasharan, appearing on behalf of the Centre, had submitted that the writ was based on general newspaper reports which cannot be treated as true.

He had said if the petitioner cites news reports she should be able to prove that the claims are true. He had also said that the petition was liable to be dismissed as it was based on hearsay and the petitioner had no locus standi to file such petition.

The PMO had termed the allegations regarding irregular land dealings between Vadra, son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, and real estate major DLF as "false, based on heresay and vexatious".

The PMO affidavit was in response to a notice issued by the bench on October 11 last year to the Centre listing objections to the maintainability of the petition filed by Thakur.