Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 23: The High Court today dismissed the petition filed by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president and former Chief Minister seeking repatriation and transfer of undertrial prisoners of Jammu and Kashmir lodged outside the J&K citing the petition has been initiated in order to garner political advantage.
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The Division Bench of Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal while dismissing the petition filed by Mufti said, a PIL is maintainable only upon a prima facie showing of public interest.
“Where such interest is in doubt or compromised by extraneous considerations, the Court must decline to interfere, as preventing the abuse of legal process is, in itself, a matter of significant public interest”, the court said and dismissed the petition.
Further, it appears that the instant petition has been initiated by the petitioner for the explicit purpose of garnering political advantage and positioning herself as a crusader of justice for a particular demographic.
“The PIL cannot be allowed to be utilized as an instrument for advancing partisan or political agendas or transforming the Court into a political platform. The PIL is also not a mechanism for gaining political leverage, and the Courts cannot serve as a forum for electoral campaigns. While political parties possess manifold legitimate avenues to engage with the electorate, courts cannot be employed as an instrument for achieving electoral advantage,” the DB said.
The PDP president had filed this petition in purported public interest, primarily for directing the respondents to immediately repatriate and transfer forthwith all undertrial prisoners belonging to J&K, presently lodged in the various prisons outside the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, to jails within the Union Territory of J&K, unless the jail authorities place before this Court the specific reasons demonstrating unavoidable/compelling necessity for keeping them in prisons outside Jammu and Kashmir.
Underscoring the guidelines already issued by the Supreme Court in this regard, the bench said the Supreme Court while addressing issues such as overcrowding, inadequate staff and absence of effective institutional mechanism for under-trial review, has issued a slew of guidelines to ensure proper medical care and basic amenities affecting the prison population.
“It is worth mentioning here that this court also has come across few cases where the under-trial prisoners, being aggrieved of their transfer from one prison to another, have approached this Court against such transfers,” said the bench adding “Even otherwise, a purely individual grievance pertaining to a prisoner’s rights cannot typically form the subject matter of Public Interest Litigation, as if any undertrial prisoner is aggrieved of his detention in the prisons outside the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, he can approach the court and the validity of the order in respect of his detention in the prisons outside the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir can be examined”.
The court said that the petitioner-Mufti’s request for omnibus directions is legally unsustainable, particularly as no specific transfer orders have been challenged or even brought on record for the Court’s consideration. Given that the affected undertrials have raised no grievance regarding their transfer to prisons outside UT of Jammu and Kashmir, the petitioner stands as a third-party stranger to the cause and has no locus standi to invoke the Court’s jurisdiction.
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