The Supreme Court observed on Monday, that the petitioner's good faith in filing the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) is an extremely relevant consideration that must be examined at the outset. This must be done regardless of the seemingly high public cause advocated by the petitioner in a PIL.

The bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sudhanshu Dhulia also noted that no FIR or complaint was filed with the police or any authority agitating the grievances in the present two PILs, and these petitions were filed before the High Court without availing of the statutory remedies.

"The fundamental requirement for the issuance of a writ of mandamus is that the petitioner must have sought such a relief before the appropriate authority and only when it is denied the Court can be approached for a writ a mandamus. This principle cannot be ignored merely because this Court is dealing with a Public Interest Litigation."

"No doubt the above procedure as given in Rules 4, 4A, 4B and 5 can be relaxed under Rule 6, for the reasons to be recorded by the Court where the case calls for an urgent intervention by the Court and it is not practicable to allow any delay to be caused in the matter. Presently, there is no finding or order of the Jharkhand High Court that any further delay in this matter would have made the petition infructuous or redundant, which may have justified the relaxation of the Rules. To the contrary, the Jharkhand High Court has held that Rules 4, 4A, 4B and 5 are not mandatory but directory in nature in view of Rule 6-A and therefore even though the Rules have not been followed that really will not come in the way of the Court to entertain a PIL, since the nature of allegations in the PIL was of a serious nature. This reasoning, in our view, is in teeth of the decision of this Court in directions given by this Court in Balwant Singh Chaufal (supra), as well as a clear violation of the Jharkhand High Court Rules, primarily Rule 4-B."

In this case, Shiv Shankar Sharma and others filed PILs seeking an investigation into Soren for alleged money laundering through shell companies and obtaining a mining lease while in power. The High Court, in ruling that these PILs are maintainable, noted that an extremely serious matter has been raised in the PILs, where there are allegations of large-scale corruption at the hands of Jharkhand's Chief Minister. The High Court also stated that, while there may be some procedural irregularities in the filing of public interest litigations, this should not prevent the Court from hearing the petition in the public interest. According to the High Court, additional rules (i.e., Rules 4, 4A, 4B, and 5 of the Jharkhand High Court (Public Interest Litigation) Rules, 2010) are advisory rather than mandatory.

Soren filed an appeal against the High Court order, claiming that no credentials were presented to the court, that the petitioner and his counsel suppressed the PILs that they filed, and that there was no prima facie satisfaction of the High Court in the matter.

Case Details:

State of Jharkhand vs Shiv Shankar Sharma

SLP(C) No.10622-10623 OF 2022 

Read the Complete judgment on the following link:-

https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2022/18261/18261_2022_8_1501_39494_Judgement_07-Nov-2022.pdf