The Madras High Court on Monday dismissed as withdrawn a public interest litigation petition which sought for a direction to the government to permit opening of pawn broker shops so that they could provide financial assistance to the poor during the lockdown to fight COVID-19.
Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana refused to entertain the PIL petition filed by advocate C. Balasubramaniam. They felt that an advocate could not be permitted to espouse the cause of unknown businessmen by filing a case styled as public interest litigation.
They, however granted liberty to the lawyer for filing a writ petition on behalf of the affected parties, if they choose to do so.
