PILs role is straying from constitutional path: Speaker

New Delhi, Aug 25: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has called it ''worrisome'' that instances of straying from the ''strict path'' of constitutional provisions have been on the rise with liberal recourse to Public Interest Litigation.

''It is worrisome,'' Chatterjee said last night, delivering the 9th G V Mavalankar Memorial Lecture, ''that instances of straying from the strict path of constitutional provisions, in the well-recognised scheme of separation of powers, have been increasing.'' The Speaker appeared to blame it on ''the liberal recourse to what is described as Public Interest Litigation.'' The Lecture was presided over by Delhi High Court Acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain.

Chatterjee said it ''has naturally raised doubts and confusion in the minds of the people about the respective domains of the different organs of the State.'' The Speaker did not dispute ''that the PIL, if used with the objective with which it was initially adopted in the 1980s, is an effective mechanism to sustain the faith of the poor and the disadvantaged people in the administration of justice and in the Rule of Law.'' But he said if ''resorting to novel methods of adjudication interferes with the discharge of its primary functions of dispensation of justice, I feel, we need to reconsider the whole gamut of the matter and come up with ways and means to address the problem.

''This would call for serious introspection on the part of all institutions of governance in our country.'' ''To my mind, what is required for any institution to perform most effectively is, to start with, a realistic role-perception within the broader systemic framework.

He recalled the words of former Supreme Court Justice Srikrishna: ''The answers to many socio-economic and political problems lie with Parliament and in a polling booth and not in a courtroom.'' He also recited remarks by such eminent jurists as Supreme Court Judge Markanday Katju and Senior Advocate Fali Nariman.

''Once the Judiciary gets involved with an issue, otherwise coming within the executive domain, it precludes the possibility of the legislature exercising its own assigned role of ensuring executive accountability through effective legislative scrutiny over such issues.'' The Speaker did not say whether the judiciary had a role if or where the legislature failed to perform its function nor why legislature has not enacted a remedy.

In his vote of thanks, Delhi High Court Judge A K Sikri pointed out that perhaps each PIL would have to be evaluated to ascertain whether it contributed to rule of law or overstepping the judicial bounds.

UNI