'Lazy PIL, No Effort Made To Understand Constitutional Right To Privacy': Orissa HC Dismisses Plea For CCTV Coverage Of Treatment Given To Covid-19 Patients

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar and Justice KR Mohapatra observed that the Petitioner did not take into account the implications that such a move may have on the privacy of patients admitted in various hospitals.

"The petition appears to have been filed only on the basis of a press clipping with absolutely no homework done to gather the necessary facts that can form the foundation for such a prayer. The Petitioner and its counsel have neither understood nor examined the implication of such a prayer for the privacy of individuals," it observed.

The Bench said that no attempt has been made by the Petitioner to understand the legal position concerning the constitutional right to privacy as explained in the judgment of the Supreme Court in Justice KS Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India.

Further, discouraging the practice of filing such inadequately researched, 'Lazy PILs', the Bench said that even though High Court has vast powers to do justice under Article 226 of the Constitution, organizations coming forward to file PILs have the responsibility of gathering facts in an unbiased and objective manner, and placing them before the Court with the "full understanding of the legal and factual dimensions" of the problem being highlighted.

It remarked,

"It is unfortunate that on many an occasion, without undertaking such exercise, copies of such petitions are handed over to the media even before they are listed before the Court and examined by it. Such an incomplete and half-hearted exercise of filing what can possibly be termed as a 'lazy' PIL, can cause more harm than good for the issue and the constituency concerned."

Case Title: Bharatiya Bikash Parisada v. State Of Odisha & Ors.

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