Courts not political platforms: HC dismisses Mehbooba’s undertrials’ repatriation plea

Srinagar, Dec 23: Underscoring that in keeping with the Supreme Court’s guidelines, the courts are obligated to ensure that Public Interest litigations (PILs) are not based on vague and general allegations, the High Court of J&K and Ladakh on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by People’s Democratic Party (PDP) President and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, seeking the repatriation of all undertrials from J&K who are currently lodged in outside jails.

“The PIL can’t be allowed to be utilised as an instrument for advancing partisan or political agendas or transforming the court into a political platform,” a Division Bench of Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal said and underscored that “lacking material documents and grounded in ambiguity, the petition seeks to invoke the writ jurisdiction on the basis of incomplete and unsubstantiated facts, clearly unveiling its political undercurrents”.

“We cannot lose sight of the fact that the petitioner is the President of PDP, a prominent political party in J&K, but in opposition at present,” the bench said.

The court observed that “while political parties possess manifold legitimate avenues to engage with the electorate, courts cannot be employed as an instrument for achieving electoral advantage”.

The court said that if the petitioner’s claim in the instant matter was assessed against the legal parameters established by the Supreme Court in the judgments it was found that the petitioner had made general and vague averments that “a lot of family members of under trials have requested her to take up the issues raised by her in this petition with the Government of J&K.”

Further, it appears that the instant petition has been initiated by the petitioner for the explicit purpose of garnering political advantage and positioning herself as a crusader of justice for a particular demographic, the court said.

The bench observed that while entertaining a PIL, the courts, in consonance with the Supreme Court guidelines, must also ascertain the petitioner’s purpose, motive, and locus standi in filing the PIL.

“The petitioner has miserably failed to specify the particulars of such families and of those under-trial prisoners, whose cause the petitioner has claimed to project through the medium of this petition and has not even mentioned the nature of the cases in which the under-trial prisoners have been detained in prisons outside J&K,” it said.

The court observed that neither the petitioner has produced nor challenged the specific transfer orders concerning undertrial prisoners from J&K, currently detained outside J&K.

“Detention of the undertrials in the prisons outside J&K is not a universal practice but is based on individual orders issued by the competent authority in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, which are individual specific,” it said.

“We also cannot remain oblivious to the violent past, which the residents of J&K have passed through, because of forces hostile to the unity and integrity of this great country,” the bench said.

The court observed that in fact, the “petitioner too recognises the special circumstances of J&K, when in relief part of this petition, she states that the undertrials be detained in the prisons of J&K, unless the jail authorities furnish reasons before this court demonstrating ‘unavoidable and compelling necessity’ in exceptional cases”.

The detailing of such exceptional cases has been conveniently ignored by the petitioner, the court said.

“Notwithstanding the vagueness and the ulterior motive that prompted the petitioner to approach the government and this court, it is deemed appropriate to observe that under-trials, whose cause, the petitioner claims to have projected in this petition, are facing trials before the respective courts. Judicial avenues were and are available to such undertrials for the redressal of any grievance concerning their detention,” it said.

The omission on their part to avail themselves of these legal remedies is indicative of the fact that they are not genuinely aggrieved by their retention in the prisons outside the J&K, the court said.

Additionally, a robust legal aid framework exists under the Legal Services Authorities Act, monitored by the Supreme Court and the High Court, the court said.

Under this framework, it said, any prisoner aggrieved by illegal state action is provided access to counsel to challenge the legality of such action.

The court said that, as far as the general conditions of the under-trials in the prisons are concerned, in ‘Re: Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, (2016) 3 SCC 700’, the Supreme Court has issued a slew of guidelines to ensure proper medical care and basic amenities affecting the prison population.

Observing that where public interest is in doubt or compromised by extraneous considerations, it must be declined, the court dismissed Mehboob’s plea as being “misconceived”.