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The PIL has now come to occupy an important field in the administration of law. It should not be allowed to become 'Publicity Interest Litigation’ or 'Politics Interest Litigation’ or 'Private Interest Litigation’ or 'Paisa Interest Litigation’ or 'Middle-class Interest Litigation’ (MIL).
The Supreme Court, in this context, observed: "PIL is not a pill or a panacea for all wrongs. It was essentially meant to protect basic human rights of the weak and the disadvantaged and was a procedure which was innovated where a public-spirited person files a petition in effect on behalf of such persons who on account of poverty, helplessness or economic and social disabilities could not approach the court for relief. There have been, in recent times increasingly instances of abuse of PIL. Therefore, there is a need to re-emphasise the parameters within which PIL can be resorted to by a petitioner and entertained by the court.”5
Therefore, the Supreme Court laid down the following guidelines for checking the misuse of the PIL6 :
1. The court must encourage genuine and bona fide PIL and effectively discourage and curb the PIL field for extraneous considerations.
2. Instead of every individual Judge devising his own procedure for dealing with PIL, it would be appropriate for each High Court to properly formulate rules for encouraging the genuine PIL filed and discouraging PIL filed with oblique motives.
3. The Court should prima facie verify the credentials of the petitioner before entertaining the PIL.
4. The Court shall be prima facie satisfied regarding the correctness of the contents of petition before entertaining the PIL.
5. The Court should be fully satisfied that substantial public interest is involved before entertaining the petition.
6. The Court should ensure that the petition which involves larger public interest, gravity and urgency must be given priority over other petitions.
7. The Court before entertaining the PIL must ensure that the PIL is aimed at redressal of genuine public harm and public injury. The Court should also ensure that there is no personal gain, private motive or oblique motive behind filing PIL.
8. The Court should also ensure that the petition filed by busybodies for extraneous and ulterior motives must be discouraged by imposing exemplary costs or adopting similar novel methods to curb frivolous petitions and the petitions filed for extraneous considerations.