Prem Porwal and Ors. Etc. v. Jagdeesh Chandra Prajapati and Ors.
Background
A social worker filed a public interest litigation before the Madhya Pradesh High Court alleging that a Municipal Council in Khachrod had illegally built and allotted shops on land called "Dussehra Maidan," reserved for the Dussehra festival, thereby eating into the festival ground. The High Court allowed the PIL and ordered demolition of the shops, without ever making the shop allottees, who had bought them through a public auction and occupied them since 2005, parties to the case. The allottees and the Municipal Council appealed to the Supreme Court after their review petitions were also dismissed.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's demolition order and dismissed the underlying PIL. It held that the High Court, in a writ/PIL proceeding, had wrongly ventured into disputed questions of land title and ownership between the Municipality and the State Government: territory outside the proper scope of public interest jurisdiction. Examining the certified municipal map, the Court found the shops were located on the boundary abutting a public road, well separated from the actual open Maidan by other existing structures (a school, community hall, hostel), so the shops did not in fact encroach on or reduce the festival ground. The Court also stressed that the allottees, who had lawfully purchased their shops through auction and paid rent for years, were never even made parties before an order to demolish their property was passed, and that a PIL's public-interest purpose cannot be used to override the lawful private rights of persons who are not before the court.
Lesson Learnt
Courts must be cautious in PIL proceedings not to decide disputed ownership/title questions or to pass orders, especially demolition orders, affecting people's property without hearing those directly affected; a PIL that ends up defeating lawful private rights defeats its own purpose.