Delhi High Court: While dismissing the present petition filed in public interest seeking the writ of mandamus directing the DRDO and Ministry of Defence to prosecute a particular officer, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, the Division Bench of G Rohini, C.J. and RS Endlaw, J., stated that the mechanism of PIL cannot be misused for intra office rivalries, and especially when the authorities concerned are taking reasonable action for the same.
The counsel for the petitioner R. Sathish, in support of his argument that no action is being taken by the concerned authorities on the complaint, placed reliance on Lalita kumari v Government of Uttar Pradesh (2014) 2 SCC 1, contending that the reports submitted by the authorities must be made public. The Court persued the reports of the committee constituted to look into the complaints and, directed the respondents to take the report to its logical conclusion.
The Court relied on Sachidanand Pandey v. State of West Bengal (1987) 2 SCC 295, Chhetriya Pradushan Mukti Sangharsh Samiti v. State of U.P. (1990) 4 SCC 449 and Gurpal Singh v State of Punjab (2005) 5 SCC 136 and stated that the Court has to be careful to see that under the garb of a PIL no attack is being made to satisfy any personal grudge. The Court reiterated that a PIL cannot be filed in the service matters and disposed the petition by emphasising that PIL should not be used as a weapon to defend any private malice. [Prabhu Dayal Dandriyal v Union of India, 2015 SCC Online Del 14134 decided on 17-12-2015]
