"You Are Lucky We Are Not Imposing Cost":SC Dismisses PIL For Judicial Inquiry Into The Mirage Aircraft Crash

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a PIL by Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava for a judicial inquiry into the Mirage Aircraft crash in Bengaluru earlier this month.

"Of which generation is the Mirage Aircraft?", inquired Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi from the petitioner-in-person.

When Srivastava hesitantly said "4th generation", the Chief Justice reprimanded the counsel, "You don't know that and you have filed a PIL to have a judicial inquiry into its crash? It is of the 3rd generation or 3.5 at best! It bound to crash! We are now on the 6th generation!"

Pulling up the Advocate for the frivolousness of the PIL, Chief Justice Gogoi further rebuked him, "This is the limit! The Supreme Court of India will order a judicial inquiry into the crash? You are lucky we are not imposing cost because you're a counsel!"

The same bench, also comprising Justice Sanjeev Khanna, further declined to entertain Advocate M. L. Sharma's petition challenging the validity of the interim budget.

The counsel has alleged that the signature of the President in respect of the interim budget presented by the NDA government on February 1 was fraudulently procured by concealing the fact that the Constitution encompasses no provision for an interim budget.

"It is the 16th Lok Sabha which has adopted the interim budget. But now the 17th is due to come in, And there is no provision to interfere with the budget of the next lok sabha", he contended.

"In addition, the interim budget was passed only by the Lok Sabha and not transmitted to the Rajya Sabha. Article 109 requires it to be transferred to the Rajya Sabha...", Sharma persisted.

However, the bench could not by persuaded.

Last year, the apex court had imposed a cost of Rs. 50,000 on Sharma for claiming in another PIL that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has "plundered" the RBI in waiving off the loans of certain companies. On that occasion, Attorney General K. K. Venugopal, in the face of such alarming increase in the volume of PILs a large proportion of which are only a waste of the court's precious time, had recommended for there to be defined limits so far as the filing of PILs is concerned.