Rajasthan High Court: The Bench of Mohammad Rafiq and Goverdhan Bardhar, JJ. disposed of a petition with the direction to the petitioner to approach the District Collector for alleviating the grievances of the petitioner.
The facts of the case are that a public interest litigation petition was filed by the petitioner contending that the Khasra in question was recorded in the revenue records as ‘gair mumkin pokhar’ (pond) and ‘gair mumkin rasta’ respectively. The said ‘pokhar’ was used by the villagers to feed water to the cattle and ‘rasta’ was being used by the villagers for going to said ‘pokhar’ and rainy water also came through that ‘rasta’ to the ‘pokhar’. It was contended that the Respondents 6 and 7 had encroached upon the aforesaid land of ‘gair mumkin pokhar’ and ‘gair mumkin rasta’ and closed the ‘rasta’ as also filled up the ‘pokhar’ with the mud. The petitioner several times requested the Tehsildar and the SDO to remove the encroachment over the aforesaid land but no action was taken by the concerned authorities. It was also contended that due to the aforesaid encroachment, the residents were suffering very hardship and they had no alternative ‘pokhar’ to feed their cattle. It was thus prayed that the respondents be directed to remove the encroachment.
The Court instead of directly entertaining this public interest litigation petition directed the petitioner to approach the District Collector for an appropriate action that should be taken within 3 months. [Bhagwan Singh v. State of Rajasthan, 2019 SCC OnLine Raj 78, Order dated 04-02-2019]
The petitioner who filed the PIL in High Court of Rajasthan should have explored all the avenues to redress their public grievance i.e, bureaucratic, political, press and TV channels before seeking ultimately, the judicial remedy.