Centre urges Supreme Court to do away with PIL jurisdiction; CJI responds
The Union government has urged the Supreme Court to abolish or at least sharply restrict its Public Interest Litigation (PIL) jurisdiction, saying the original justification for PILs has largely disappeared in the present‑day justice‑delivery system. In response, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has indicated that the Court is already highly cautious about entertaining PILs and sees no need to abandon the PIL doctrine altogether.
What the Centre argued
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The Centre, through Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, told a nine‑judge Constitution Bench hearing the Sabarimala reference that the factual basis for PILs—widespread denial of access to courts for the poor and marginalised—has “materially weakened” over the last five decades.
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It proposed restoring traditional locus standi principles and suggested that in rare cases where individuals genuinely cannot litigate, the answer should lie in strengthening legal‑aid and other targeted procedural mechanisms, not in preserving a broad PIL jurisdiction.
CJI’s response
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CJI Surya Kant told the Court and the government that “the answer is very simple”: the Supreme Court has in recent decades become “very, very careful” in admitting PILs and has laid down strict parameters to test them.
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He noted that notices are issued only when there is real substance, and that from 2006 onward the Court has progressively narrowed the scope of PILs, agreeing that courts must be cautious—especially when petitions are filed with “different kinds of agendas”—but stopping short of suggesting abolition of PIL jurisdiction itself.
Why this debate arose
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The PIL‑jurisdiction question surfaced in the context of the Sabarimala temple case, where the nine‑judge Bench is reviewing the maintainability of petitions filed by non‑devotees challenging the restriction on women of menstruating age.
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The Centre’s push against PILs is framed as a constitutional‑design concern: that rights‑violations should generally be litigated by the affected parties themselves, with robust legal‑aid backup, rather than through loosely‑anchored “public interest” suits that may be politically or publicly motivated.
