"Sheer abuse of PIL:" Delhi High Court imposes ₹10 lakh cost on NGO for filing petition to "blackmail" builders

The Delhi High Court has imposed costs of ₹10 lakh on an NGO for filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to ‘blackmail’ builders and for suppressing the fact that it had filed a petition earlier on the similar issue [New Rise Foundation Regd Charitable Trust v Municipal Corporation Delhi and Ors]..A Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad directed the NGO -- New Rise Foundation Regd. Charitable Trust – to deposit the money with the Army War Widows Fund within 30 days.The bench said that the NGO had not come to Court with clean hands and the petition was nothing but a “sheer abuse of the Doctrine of Public Interest Litigation”.The petition is, therefore, liable to be dismissed, the Court said.“In the considered opinion of this Court, the present petition is nothing but a sheer abuse of the process of law and therefore, this Court is of the opinion that the present petition deserves to be dismissed at admission stage itself with costs of ₹10,00,000/- (Rupees Ten Lakhs) to be paid to the Army War Widows Fund within a period of 30 days from today,” the Court ordered..The NGO approached the Court alleging unauthorised existence of a structure in Neb Sarai and said that though they had made various representations, no steps were taken by the authorities.However, counsel appearing for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) told the Court that the petitioner NGO is, in fact, involved in blackmailing builders and other people.The counsel further stated that the same petitioner represented by the same counsel had filed a plea earlier and when the matter was taken up on June 2, 2022, the court was inclined to impose costs as it was a frivolous petition but it was later allowed to be withdrawn..Relying on the Supreme Court’s judgment Janata Dal v. HS Chowdhary, the High Court said that the forum of approaching court by way of the newly developed doctrine of PIL should not be permitted to be abused.The Court has said that if the amount is not paid within 30 days, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Saket, will recover the amount as arrears of land revenue and shall transfer the same to the Army War Widows Fund with intimation to the Registrar General.“The Registrar General shall monitor the recovery as ordered by this Court. The Petitioner shall appear before the Registrar General for reporting compliance on 02.09.2022,” the Court directed..Advocate Prakash Chandra Dwivedi appeared for the petitioner.Central Government Standing Counsel Ajay Digpaul and advocates Kamal Digpaul, Swati Kwatra, Sunil Fernandes, Shubham Sharma, Muskan, Sanjana Nangia and Sameer Vashisht appeared for the respondents..[Read Order]