Taking a serious note of filing PIL petition for wrong reasons and wasting court’s precious time, Telangana High Court on Friday imposed ₹50,000 fine on a petitioner.
Rejecting the petitioner’s counsel request to reduce the fine amount, the HC ordered that the fine amount be deposited in Advocates Welfare Fund. Sixty-year-old B. Venkateshwarlu of Nalgonda district filed the PIL plea seeking a direction to authorities not to permit installation of a new petrol bunk in the vicinity of Nagarjunsagar dam.
Hearing the petition, the bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy sought to know details of the petitioner. When his lawyer Venkat Mayur replied that he was working part-time, the bench specifically asked about his job profile.
The lawyer replied the petitioner worked part-time in a petrol bunk. Observing that this had implied the possibility of the petrol bank management being behind the PIL petition, the bench said filing such sponsored pleas in the name of public interest was not fair.
Tribals’ plea
Hearing a separate writ petition which was moved as lunch motion, Justice A. Abhishek Reddy directed Jangaon District Collector not to plant trees in the house sites of 20 tribal families in Yerragolla Pahad village.
Members of these families moved the HC stating that over a 100 policemen arrived at their homes on Thursday and tried to forcibly evict them from their house sites. These lands were allotted to them by the government in 1998, their counsel N.S. Arjun Kumar told the court.
The lawyer presented photographs of police trying to evict the families before the court. The judge sought to know from the government pleader why so many policemen were present there. The government counsel sought time to secure instructions on the matter.
The petition was posted to Monday for hearing.
