The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday expressed serious concern over the growing misuse of Public Interest Litigation (PIL), warning that the jurisdiction is increasingly being exploited for private, political, and publicity-driven motives.

During the hearing of a reference arising out of the Sabarimala Review Case, Justice B.V. Nagarathna delivered a sharp observation on the evolving nature of PILs:

“PIL – Public Interest Litigation has now become private interest litigation, publicity interest litigation, paisa interest litigation and political interest litigation. All are called PILs. But we entertain only real and genuine PILs.”

The matter is being heard by a nine-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices M.M. Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B. Varale, R. Mahadevan, and Joymalya Bagchi.

CJI Surya Kant also flagged a troubling trend where PILs are increasingly being filed based solely on media reports. Questioning such practices, he remarked:

“We entertained PILs based on this kind of document which should have been thrown outrightly in the dustbin? A news item… Law would have taken its own course.”

Justice Nagarathna echoed similar concerns, pointing out that articles are sometimes deliberately published to create grounds for filing PILs:

“It is easy to get articles written for the sake of filing PILs… We entertain PILs only for genuine causes, not for newspaper articles.”

Highlighting the volume of such petitions, Justice Nagarathna noted that the Chief Justice receives hundreds of letters daily, cautioning against converting every grievance into a PIL.

Addressing arguments that PILs are non-adversarial, the Bench clarified that PIL proceedings can indeed have adversarial consequences. CJI Surya Kant stated:

“PIL can also be adversarial litigation… There will be parties affected; it could have consequences adversarial in nature.”

While counsel acknowledged the misuse of PILs and pointed to existing safeguards, Justice Nagarathna sharply responded:

“Not being followed.”