The Bombay High Court on Sunday rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by four law students challenging the Maharashtra government’s decision to declare a public holiday on January 22 for the Ram temple consecration in Ayodhya.
The court deemed the petition “politically motivated, frivolous and vexatious”, advising the students to utilise their time more constructively.
A Bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale, which held a special hearing on Sunday for the petition filed by students from Maharashtra and Gujarat, refrained from imposing the exemplary cost on the petitioners due to their age and criticised the plea’s political overtones.
“Normally the court while dismissing such a petition would impose an exemplary cost on the petitioner, but it was refraining from doing so as the petitioners here are young students and hence a word of caution would suffice,” the Bench said.
It further said: “The petition has political overtones and it appears to be a petition that is politically motivated and a publicity interest litigation. A glare for publicity seems to be apparent from the tenor of the petition and the arguments made in the open court.”
The Maharashtra government argued that declaring a holiday was an executive policy decision beyond judicial scrutiny. In their petition, Shivangi Agarwal, Satyajeet Salve, Vedant Agarwal and Khushi Bangia, claimed it was a “gross abuse of power for political purposes”, and sought that the High Court quash the government order declaring a holiday on January 22.
The court said the petitioners had also questioned the wisdom of the Supreme Court in an order passed in another matter and this had shaken “our judicial conscience”.
The court found the plea to be frivolous, questioning its political remarks and the premature media disclosure. “We have no doubt that this PIL has been filed for extraneous reasons. It appears to be absolutely frivolous and vexatious and does not deserve the attention of court,” the Bench said, adding that there was no doubt that such petitions were a “blatant abuse of law” and could not be kept pending.
“As pointed out by the respondent [Maharashtra government], there are some statements about political agenda in the plea that are political in nature...some are very reckless statements. On whose motivation or at whose instance have those statements been included in the plea,” the Bench asked.
The High Court also questioned the petitioners as to how the media came to know of the petition even before it was placed before the court.
The plea argued that government involvement in religious practices threatened secularism, while the government defended the decision as part of its policy for religious events.
“Any step taken by the government including declaration of public holiday for celebrating the consecration of a Hindu temple is nothing but an act of identifying with a particular religion,” the petitioners claimed.
“The petition proceeds on a wrong footing that the decision was arbitrary. Most of the public holidays are for religious events. This allows citizens to carry out their religious practices. And such holidays are not declared for only one community. It is done for all religious communities,” said Advocate General Birendra Saraf, appearing for the Maharashtra government.
