Allahabad High Court dismisses PIL calling for Uttar Pradesh CM to refrain from using 'Yogi’ title

The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to disclose his full name, and refrain him from using 'Yogi' as a title in official communication [Namaha v. State of UP]..A Bench of Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Piyush Agrawal imposed ₹1 lakh costs on the petitioner to discourage the filing of such frivolous petitions.“We find this petition to be totally misconceived, filed with ulterior motive by a political person, without disclosing his complete credentials and concealing material facts from the Court. Hence, the same is dismissed,” the Bench recorded..The petitioner placed reliance on certain documents to show that the CM was using different names at different places, on different occasions. He had filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for furnishing information regarding the CM’s name. However, the same had not been furnished..The State argued that the writ petition was not maintainable as the CM was impleaded as a private person. It was brought to the Court’s attention that the petitioner had not disclosed his credentials as required under the High Court Rules. It was the State’s contention that the petition was filed with an ulterior motive and deserved to be dismissed with special costs..In response to the submissions, the petitioner told the Court that he was not aware of the Rules and Orders of the Court that required disclosure of credentials of a person filing a PIL. He claimed that he was illiterate as certified by the Election Commission of India. The Court was also informed that the petitioner was a candidate from the Laxmi Nagar Assembly constituency. He secured about 70-80 votes in the 2020 elections on a ticket of the Lok Janshakti Party..The High Court relied on a judgment of the Supreme Court in Dattaraj Nathuji Thaware v. State of Maharashtra, where it was opined that public interest litigation is a weapon to be used with great care and circumspection.After examining precedents, the Bench concluded that the petition was totally misconceived and filed with ulterior motives by a political person.“He being a political person, deliberately chose to conceal his identity while filing the writ petition, apparently with some ulterior motive or cheap publicity.”.It was found that he made attempts to mislead the Court by giving an address from Delhi, but had stated that he belonged to Uttar Pradesh. Another attempt to mislead the Court was flagged when he claimed to be illiterate.“He claimed that he had been certified to be an illiterate person by the Election Commission of India, a fact which was belied on the face of it from the conduct and presentation of the case by the petitioner. He was arguing his case in English. He was carrying copy of the Constitution of India and could read the same very well,” it was observed..With this, the plea was dismissed and the petitioner was saddled with costs of ₹1 lakh, which were to be deposited by him within six weeks with the Viklang Kendra, Bharadwaj Ashram..The petitioner appeared in-person and the respondents were represented by Additional Advocate General Manish Goel, Chief Standing Counsel Vineet Pandey, Additional Chief Standing Counsel AK Goyal and Advocate Ashutosh Mishra..[Read order]