Bhubaneswar: The Orissa High Court has warned against the misuse of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to air unsubstantiated grievances, saying petitions based on mere apprehension and unsupported claims cannot invoke its extraordinary jurisdiction. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Chittaranjan Dash made the observation while dismissing as “sans merit” a PIL challenging the proposed continuation of auction of the “Luna River Sand Sairat”, a government-designated sand quarry, at Demando village under Tilakana Gram Panchayat in Kataka district.
The Bench observed that PIL petitions were increasingly being filed without supporting documents, corroborative evidence, adequate research or expert opinion. It further maintained that merely approaching the court in the name of villagers does not automatically give a petition the character of public interest litigation. The PIL was filed by two persons claiming to represent villagers, who alleged that sand extraction had damaged the river, embankment and village road and caused hardship to local residents. They also claimed that villagers were unaware of the 2020-21 auction of the sand quarry. The court, however, found no evidence of river or embankment erosion, or any research or expert opinion establishing that sand extraction had affected the river’s natural flow, damaged its embankment or disturbed the local ecological system.