The Supreme Court on Friday ordered a PIL petitioner to deposit ₹5 lakh as costs for his “frivolous” plea that said the Bombay High Court Chief Justice did not say ‘I’ while taking his oath of office.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said the petitioner, advocate Ashok Pandey, has no doubt that the person who took the oath was indeed Justice D.K. Upadhyaya, the current Chief Justice of Bombay High Court. Again, there is no quarrel about the fact that it was the Maharashtra Governor who administered the oath to Justice Upadhyaya, the Bench added.
“This is only a frivolous attempt to use the PIL jurisdiction to propagate some publicity for the petitioner… We accordingly dismiss the petition with costs of ₹5,00,000,” Chief Justice Chandrachud ordered.
If Mr. Pandey does not pay up, the court ordered the Lucknow District Collector to collect the amount as arrears of land revenue from him.
PIL on Darwin and Einstein
In the court next door, a Bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul was battling another “frivolous” PIL filed by a man who believed that both Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein were wrong in their conclusions.
The petitioner, Raj Kumar, said Mr. Darwin was wrong about the theory of evolution and Mr. Einstein erred in deducing that E=MC².
Justice Kaul advised the petitioner to either re-educate himself or match up to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Einstein with his own theories.
The day also saw Justice Kaul dismiss another petitioner’s attempt to coax the court to frame a “national traffic management policy”.
“We are clearly of the view that such frivolous PILs occupy the time and attention of the Court thereby deflecting the attention of the Court from more serious matters and consuming the infrastructure of the judicial manpower and Registry of the Court. Time has come when the Court should impose exemplary costs in such frivolous PILs,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed in the court in Mr. Pandey’s case.
