HC trashes PIL which sought to stall party functionaries from attending Govt functions

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, disposed the plea on pointing out that the petitioner has a huge axe to grind against the fifth respondent (Payya R.Krishnan District Secretary Coimbatore Urban (West) DMK and says that his participation in government functions may be completely inappropriate.

“Ordinarily, party functionaries have no role to play in government programmes. However, there cannot be any impediment to a party functionary being invited to a particular programme and a government functionary or official requesting the party functionary to share in the distribution of material,” the bench held.

“These are minor matters that are left to the discretion and the taste of the individuals concerned, where the issuance of a mandamus may neither be effective nor is desirable,” the bench added while making it clear that no effective order was required.

The petitioner S. Gopalakrishnan had sought for a direction to the Coimbatore District administration to forbear the said DMK functionary from presiding over or participating in Government functions.