‘Service matters can’t be maintained as PILs’

A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad, on citing various Supreme Court orders as what constitutes public interest litigation, said, “Keeping in mind the pronouncement of the Supreme Court as to whether PIL can be maintained in service matters, we posed a question to the counsel for the petitioner. Answer was neither positive nor negative. But the prayer made in the writ petition speaks for itself.”

“It is to call for the records of N Rajendran, Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, Government Arts College, Chidambaram and K Chinnadurai, Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, Periyar Arts College, Cuddalore and direct the Chairman, Teachers Recruitment Board to conduct an enquiry in respect of the certificate of experience produced by both the persons and take further action,” the bench added. 

Also citing a case where the Supreme Court had held that in service matters PILs should not be entertained, the bench said “the inflow of the so-called PILs involving service matters continues unabated in the courts and strangely are entertained. The least the high courts could do is to throw them out based on the said decision.”

The bench in its order also quoted a Supreme Court observation that “PIL is a weapon which has to be used with great care and circumspection and the judiciary has to be extremely careful to see that behind the beautiful veil of public interest an ugly private malice, vested interest and publicity seeking is not lurking.”