( 2025:HHC:25780 ) IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH SHIMLA CWPIL No. 69 of 2023 Decided on: 30th July, 2025 __________________________________________________ Gurmeet Singh ....Petitioner Versus State of Himachal Pradesh & Others …Respondents ___________________________________________________ Coram Hon’ble Mr. Justice G.S. Sandhawalia, Chief Justice Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ranjan Sharma, Judge Whether approved for reporting? 1 For the Petitioner: Ms. Deepmala Sharma and Ms.Rajni Gandhi, Advocates. For the respondents: Mr. Sidharth Jalta, Deputy Advocate General for respondents No.1 to 6/State. Mr. Adarsh K. Vashista, Advocate, for respondent No.7. Mr.Rajesh Kumar Parmar, Advocate for respondents No.38 and 39. Mr. Neeraj Gupta, Senior Advocate with Mr.Ajeet Pal Jaswal, Advocate for respondents No.8 to 12,14 to 33, 37,40,43 to 49. G.S. Sandhawalia, Chief Justice (Oral) The present Public Interest Litigation seeks directions to the respondents-State to take action for removal of 1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2 encroachments upon the open land reserved for Park, Hospital, School, Road and Septic Tank etc. 2. The violation of the earlier order passed by the then Coordinate Bench is alleged in CWPIL No. 95 of 2018 decided on 04.09.2018 (Annexure P-8), which was also initiated on the basis of a letter written by the present petitioner namely Gurmeet Singh son of Ram Singh alongwith another gentleman. 3. Keeping in view the Rules, which have been framed namely “Himachal Pradesh High Court (Public Interest Litigation) Rules, 2021”, we are of the considered opinion that the present petition is not maintainable at the hands of the petitioner, as there has been major concealment of facts. Wrong averments have been made regarding the fact that he has no personal interest in the litigation and he is not guided by any self- gain and that the local residents of Mehta Colony, Nalagarh are a class of persons for whose benefit, the present petition has been filed. 4. It has also been averred that the petitioner is businessman by profession and has means to pay costs. The same reads as under:- “1. That the petitioner is the permanent resident of ward No. 1, Mehta Colony, Nalagarh District Solan, H.P. and 3 has no personal interest in the litigation and that the petitioner is not guided by self gain or for gain of any other person /institution/ body and that there is no motive other than public interest in filing of the same. 2. That the petitioner has knowledge of the facts mentioned in the petition from the annexures affixed to the petition. 3. That the local residents of the Mehta Colony, for whose for Nalagarh are the class of persons benefit the petition has been filed.” 5. Primary cause of action as such is stated to be on the basis of a ground that one Jagdish Prasad Soni had applied for changing the use of the land to commercial/residential purpose under Section 16 of the Himachal Pradesh Town and Country Planning Act, as per the permission dated 01.08.1990 (Annexure P-1), wherein he had to comply with the condition of providing facilities of road/path, drainage, sewerage, electricity and water supply. The area of the land is 25447.75 square meters in Hadbast No.139/2, Nalagarh. 6. It is also pertinent to notice that neither Jagdish Prasad Soni nor his legal representatives have been arrayed as respondents and the memo of parties of first round of litigation also goes on to show that the said persons were not impleaded. The specific case as such of the respondents, which comes forth 4 is that on the directions issued in the earlier round of litigation, a committee had to look into the allegations and the constructions were only to be allowed in accordance with law; and the committee was to consist of officers and examine all the issues and submit its report to the Government. The relevant portion reads as under:- “12. As such, we are perused by the learned Advocate General to close the present proceedings, which we so do, in the following terms:- (i) Statement made by learned Advocate General on behalf of Additional Chief Secretary (TCP & UD), is accepted and taken on record. No construction of whatsoever nature shall be allowed to be raised in the area in question, save and except, in accordance with law. Violation, if any, shall tantamount to contempt of Court. (ii) That a fresh notification shall be issued constituting a proper Committee only of the Officers and not officials, to be headed by the Sub Divisional Magistrate of the area. This shall be so done within one week from today. (iii) That said Committee shall examine all the issues in terms of the statement made on behalf of the State through learned Advocate General and submit its report to the Government within a period of two months from today. (iv) It shall be open for anyone of the private parties to invite attention on any matter pertaining to the scope of inquiry by the Committee, including the documents 5 placed before this Court. (v) Report of the Committee shall be made available to the parties before us. (vi) The Additional Chief Secretary (TCP & UD) to the Government of Himachal Pradesh shall ensure that appropriate action, in accordance with law, is taken on the said report within a period of four weeks from the date of submission of such report. (vii) We clarify that we have not expressed any opinion on merits and all issues are left open. As such, liberty is reserved to anyone of the parties to approach this Court by filing an independent petition on the same and subsequent cause of action. (viii) All interim orders shall stand vacated. (ix) We clarify that construction, if any, to be carried out in the interregnum period, shall be allowed to be carried out strictly in accordance with law, more specifically, in terms of the statements made by the learned Advocate General. 13. Before parting, we wish to place on record our appreciation for the efforts put in by Mr. N.K. Sood, learned Senior Advocate as Amicus Curiae, in assisting the Court. With the aforesaid observations, present petition as also all application, stand disposed of.” 7. Apparently, a report as such was submitted dated 02.04.2019 (Annexure R-2), wherein it has been mentioned that Jagdish Prasad Soni and his brothers had partitioned their land by way of Khangi partition and mutation No.88 dated 28.11.1992 had been attested and thereafter plotting had been carried out 6 and separate numbers were allotted. It was neither reflected in the Revenue records that any land was kept for the purpose of green area, School and nursing home nor it was shown by the Town and Country Planning Department in the permission of change of land use in the letter dated 01.08.1990. 8. The said report was not accepted by the Government, which would be clear from the letter dated 05.08.2019 as the Joint Secretary, Department of Urban Development, vide the said letter had remanded the matter to the Committee for doing the needful on the ground that it has not been pointed out that there is a violation of the provisions of the Act by the officials and Officers of the Department. 9. The second report which has now been placed on record is annexed as Annexure R-7-1, addressed on 15.01.2020 to the Principal Secretary (UD), Government of Himachal Pradesh. A perusal of the said report would go on to show that in principle, the factum of the sale of land and development of the land by Jagdish Prasad Soni etc. has been mentioned and further a fact has come forth that father of the complainant (Ram Singh) had also purchased plots from one Nirmala Devi and that the permission had been granted for construction of only for ground 7 floor and first floor and father of the petitioner had also constructed one story un-authorizedly. The relevant portion reads as under:- “10. That it is further submitted that the Municipal Council has removed the 28 encroachment done in the government land of Mehta Colony during the pendency of writ petition. The copy of the list of the encroachers, who have been evicted, is annexed as Annexure 12. It is further submitted that it is also not out of place to mention here that even the father of the complainant has purchased plots in the changed khasra number bearing 939/332 measuring 247-50 from one Nirmala Devi in the changed khasra numbers in the year 2001 and submitted the site plan to the Town and Country planning Department which was approved after completing the codal formalities by Town and Country Planning Department Parwanoo which was submitted to the Municipal Council for permission and the same was granted by the Municipal Council. It is further submitted that the permission granted by Municipal Committee Nalagarh was only for ground floor and first floor but under the garb of said permission father of the complainant has also constructed one story unauthorisedly. The copy of the permission letter and plan is annexed as Annexure 13.” 10. It has further been mentioned that the site plans have been passed on the basis of the sale deeds and care has been taken by the Municipal Council Nalagarh to keep the road/path, drainage, sewerage, electricity and water supply etc. as per 8 permission of change of land use granted by the Town & Country Planning Department on 01.08.1990. 11. Respondent No.7 in his reply has specifically mentioned regarding the personal interest of the petitioner being resident of the ward No.1 Mehta Colony, Nalagarh. It has specifically been mentioned that encroachments were removed by the Revenue Department as per information of the Municipal Council. 12. In the rejoinder (sic replication), again the necessary averments have been made by the petitioner that he has no personal interest as such, while repeating the earlier averments. 13. The private respondents, who have been impleaded on 06.11.2024, in their reply have specifically mentioned that petitioner has encroached upon the land and raised construction in violation of the Rules and the petitioner is an non-agriculturist and has purchased property in violation of the provisions of Section 118 of the H.P. Tenancy and Land Reforms Act and the petition has not been filed in consonance with the Public Interest Litigation Rules. 14. In the rejoinder (sic replication) filed, the said fact has not been rebutted as such, whereby it is admitted that the second 9 floor has already been approved and the compounding fee of the 3rd floor was submitted by the petitioner to Municipal Council, Nalagarh on 28.07.2023 and the house is within the norms of Municipal committee. The copy of the compounding fees is annexed as Annexure PR-8, which goes on to show that a sum of Rs.4,613/- was deposited by Ram Singh, father of the petitioner on 28.07.2023. Thus there is an admission as such by the petitioner himself regarding the fact that he is resident of the colony and his father has himself violated the building regulations and opted for compounding earlier, this aspect was never disclosed in the initial point of time. 15. The Himachal Pradesh High Court (Public Interest Litigation) Rules, 2021 as such framed by this Court specifically provides under part III, Rule 9 that specific averment had to be given that there shall not be personal interest in the litigation and that the petition shall not be guided by self-gain or for gain of any other person and specific averment has to be made that for whose benefit the petition has been filed and whether the said persons are in-capable of accessing the Courts themselves. Under Rule 7 contained in (part II), in which it is provided that personal disputes between individuals are also not liable to be 10 taken up and Landlord-Tenant Dispute, services matters and disputes relating to contractual or statutory liabilities and matrimonial disputes etc., shall not be entertained as Public Interest Litigation. The same reads as under:- Part III Filing of Public Interest Litigations Instructions for filing Public Interest Litigations 9 (i) A writ petition intended to be a Public Interest Litigation shall contain: (a) An inscription immediately below the number of the writ petition in the title, namely: ‘In The Matter of Public Interest Litigation'. (b) A specific averment in para 1 of the writ petition that the writ petitioner has no personal interest in the litigation and that the petition is not guided by self-gain or for gain of any other person/institution/body and that there is no motive other than public interest in filing of the same. (c) A specific averment in para 2 of the writ petition as to the source of knowledge of the facts mentioned in the writ petition and inquiries/ investigation, if any, made to determine the veracity of the same. (d) A specific averment in para 3 of the writ petition specifying the class of persons for whose benefit the petition has been filed and as to how such persons are incapable of accessing the Courts 11 themselves. (e) A specific averment in para 4 of the writ petition of the persons /bodies/ institutions likely to be affected by the orders sought in the writ petition and which/who shall be impleaded as respondents and a further averment that to the knowledge of the petitioner no other persons/bodies/institutions are likely to be affected by the orders sought in the writ petition. (f) A specific averment in para 5 of the writ petition of the background of the petitioner with qualifications to show the competence of the petitioner to espouse the cause. If the petitioner is an organization, the names and address of its office bearers and the nature of its activities shall be stated. An averment shall also be made that the petitioner has the means to pay the costs, if any, imposed by the Court and on an undertaking to the Court in that respect. Part II Letter Petitions Guidelines for Screening Letter Petition 7 Letter Petitions raising or alluding to matters of Public Interest shall be entertained as Letter Petitions. The Letter Petitions under the following categories shall not be entertained as Public Interest Litigation: 12 (i) Landlord-Tenant disputes; (ii) Service matters and those pertaining to pension (not being family pension) and gratuity; (iii) Personal disputes between individuals; (iv) Disputes relating to contractual or statutory liabilities; (v) Matrimonial disputes” 16. Thus, we are of the considered opinion that under the Rules itself the petitioner was under bounden duty as such to specifically disclose that he is a resident of the same colony and he is not filing the present PIL for his alleged benefit. Having concealed the fact that his father as such has purchased the land from one Nirmala Devi and has constructed a house in the same colony, namely Mehta Colony, in which there are violations as such, which now, as per own admission, have been compounded by paying a sum of Rs.4613/- and also the fact that he himself has also encroached as such upon the Government land as his name figures in the list of encroachers at Sr.No.25, we are of the considered opinion that rather on account of personal interest in the litigation, the present case has been initiated which is specifically barred under the Rules. Even in the rejoinder (sic 13 replication) now filed by the private respondents, it has been mentioned that the State as such instead of inquiring on constructions over the reserved land had directed its inquiry over the government land and also released the list (Annexure PR-11). A perusal of the said list would go on to show that the petitioner’s name himself figures at Sr.No.25 amongst the list of encroachers on the government land. The sale deed in favour of the petitioner’s father has also not been placed on record to show from whom the land was purchased. In such circumstances, we do not find any plausible reason to entertain the present Public Interest Litigation. 17. In Guruvayur Devaswom Managing Committee and another vs. C.K. Rajan and Others, AIR 2004 SC 561, it has been held that Public Interest Litigation is to make justice available to the down-trodden and the Courts are not to be used for personal litigation. 18. In Ashok Kumar Pandey vs. State of West Bengal and others, AIR 2004 SC 280, it was held as under:- “11. It is depressing to note that on account of such trumpery proceedings initiated before the Courts, innumerable days are wasted, which time otherwise could have been spent for the disposal of cases of the genuine litigants. Though we spare no efforts in 14 fostering and developing the laudable concept of PIL and extending our long arm of sympathy to the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed and the needy whose fundamental rights are infringed and violated and whose grievance go unnoticed, un-represented and unheard; yet we cannot avoid but express our opinion that while genuine litigants with legitimate grievances relating to civil matters involving properties worth hundreds of millions of rupees and criminal cases in which persons sentenced to death facing gallows under untold agony and persons sentenced to life imprisonment and kept in incarceration for long years, persons suffering from undue delay in service matters - government or private, persons awaiting the disposal of cases wherein huge amounts of public revenue or unauthorized collection of tax amounts are locked up, detenu expecting their release from the detention orders etc. etc. etc. are all standing in a long serpentine queue for years with the fond hope of getting into the Courts and having their grievances redressed, the busy bodies, meddlesome interlopers, wayfarers or officious interveners having absolutely no public interest except for personal gain or private profit either of themselves or as a proxy of others or for any other extraneous motivation or for glare of publicity break the queue muffing their faces by wearing the mask of public interest litigation and get into the Courts by filing vexatious and frivolous petitions and thus criminally waste the valuable time of the Courts and as a result of which the queue standing outside the doors of the court never moves, which piquant situation creates frustration in the minds of the genuine litigants 15 and resultantly they loose faith in the administration of our judicial system. 12. Public interest litigation is a weapon which has to be used with great care and circumspection and the judiciary has to be extremely careful to see that behind the beautiful veil of public interest an ugly private malice, vested interest and/or publicity seeking is not lurking. It is to be used as an effective weapon in the armory of law for delivering social justice to the citizens. The attractive brand name of public interest litigation should not be used for suspicious products of mischief. It should be aimed at redressal of genuine public wrong or public injury and not publicity oriented or founded on personal vendetta. As indicated above, Court must be careful to see that a body of persons or member of public, who approaches the court is acting bona fide and not for personal gain or private motive or political motivation or other oblique consideration. The Court must not allow its process to be abused for oblique considerations. Some persons with vested interest indulge in the pastime of meddling with judicial process either by force of habit or from improper motives. Often they are actuated by a desire to win notoriety or cheap popularity. The petitions of such busy bodies deserve to be thrown out by rejection at the threshold, and in appropriate cases with exemplary costs. 13. The Council for Public Interest Law set up by the Ford Foundation in USA defined the "public interest litigation" in its report of Public Interest Law, USA, 1976 as follows: “Public Interest Law is the name that has recently been given to efforts provide legal 16 representation to previously unrepresented groups and interests. Such efforts have been undertaken in the recognition that ordinary market place for legal services fails to provide such services to significant segments of the population and to significant interests. Such groups and interests include the proper environmentalists, consumers, racial and ethnic minorities and others." 14. The Court has to be satisfied about (a) the credentials of the applicant; (b) the prima facie correctness or nature of information given by him; (c) the information being not vague and indefinite. The information should show gravity and seriousness involved. Court has to strike balance between two conflicting interests; (i) nobody should be allowed to indulge in wild and reckless allegations besmirching the character of others; and (ii) avoidance of public mischief and to avoid mischievous petitions seeking to assail, for oblique motives, justifiable executive actions. In such case, however, the Court cannot afford to be liberal. It has to be extremely careful to see that under the guise of redressing a public grievance, it does not encroach upon the sphere reserved by the Constitution to the Executive and the Legislature. The Court has to act ruthlessly while dealing with imposters and busy bodies or meddlesome interlopers impersonating as public- spirited holy men. They masquerade as crusaders of justice. They pretend to act in the name of Pro Bono Publico, though they have no interest of the public or even of their own to protect.” 17 19. In Dr. B. Singh vs. Union of India and others (2004) 3 SCC 363, it was held that a meddlesome interlopers, wayfarers have no public interest except for personal gain or private profits and the Court has to satisfy about the credentials of the applicant and that the Judiciary has to be extremely careful that there is no ugly private malice and vested interest in the public interest litigation which is a weapon to be used with great care and circumspection.” 20. In State of Uttaranchal vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal and others, reported in (2010) 3 SCC 402, directions were issued to the High Court to frame its Rules and it was held that the exemplary costs are to be imposed or by adopting similar novel methods to curb frivolous petitions which were filed for extraneous considerations and the bonafide of the public interest litigation had to be examined and kept in mind. 21. Accordingly, we impose costs of Rs.50,000/- to be deposited in the High Court Staff Welfare Organization within four months. In case the amount is not paid, the Deputy Commissioner, Solan shall ensure recovery of the said amount by taking appropriate recourse. 22. In view of the above, the present Public Interest 18 Litigation is dismissed and pending applications, if any, are disposed off. ( G.S. Sandhawalia ) Chief Justice 30th July, 2025 ( Ranjan Sharma ) (priti) Judge