PIL against Azim Premji rejected; Karnataka high court imposes Rs1 lakh fine on petitioner to deter those filing frivolous petitions.
Coming down heavily on the growing tendency of people filing public interest litigations (PILs) for frivolous reasons, the Karnataka high court on Wednesday imposed Rs1 lakh fine on a petitioner who filed such a PIL against IT czar Azim Premji.
Chief justice JS Khehar on Wednesday imposed a hefty cost of Rs1 lakh on one Santhosh Min B, a Bangalore resident, who contested the last Lok Sabha elections as an independent and lost his deposit. Min’s PIL alleged that the Wipro chairman had encroached upon 23 guntas of land on Kempapura tank bed area near Bellandur without verifying the factual position.
“The petitioner seems to be a busybody seeking publicity. He is more concerned about this 23 guntas land and no reference is made about 14,999.17 acres of government land that is encroached in and around Bangalore (as per a report). Even after the fourth respondent (Azim Premji) filed a statement explaining the factual position, the petitioner does not wish to file a rejoinder to that,” observed the court.
Justice Khehar also observed that “He (Min) wants to emerge as a well-known personality through newspapers aimed at next general elections to the LS. He claims to be unemployed and his daily routine is nothing useful. His only intention seems to be to harass public personalities and waste public time. This petition is frivolous and the attitude of petitioner is irresponsible.”
The court directed the petitioner to deposit the Rs1 lakh with the Advocates’ Welfare Fund managed by the Karnataka State Bar Council within three months.
“If the amount is not deposited, this petition will be re-listed and further action will be taken,” the division bench headed by justice Khehar observed.
During the hearing the petitioner told the court that he had contested last general election from Bangalore South.
The petitioner’s allegations against Premji were based on the AT Ramaswamy committee report on land encroachments in and around Bangalore. But the Wipro Chairman, in his statement, said that after coming to know of this, he got the land re-surveyed and returned the excess land to the government.
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