Frivolous PILs: High court tells three to pay ₹50L

Taking stern note of motivated petitions, the Bombay high court (HC) on Friday imposed a cost of ₹50 lakh on a 51-year-old Pune resident, an agriculturist from Nagpur,

Taking stern note of motivated petitions, the Bombay high court (HC) on Friday imposed a cost of ₹50 lakh on a 51-year-old Pune resident, an agriculturist from Nagpur, and Nagarjuna Agro Chemicals Private Limited for filing vexatious petitions.

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The cost amount will be paid equally to the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), both of which function under the control of the Union agriculture ministry.

Pune resident Anand Embadwar had approached the HC in October 2017 with a public interest litigation (PIL) complaining that the soil test fertiliser recommendation (STFR) meter, commercialised by ICAR and IARI, did not satisfy the requirement for testing soil in respect to 12 parameters, including two mandatory components of copper and nitrogen.

This, according to the 51-year-old, amounted to misrepresentation, and practising mischief, and cheating farmers.

Embadwar also urged that the commercialisation of the STFR meter to prevent further cheating, misrepresentation, and mischief, and also to prevent the damage of soil.

A year later, Nagarjuna Agro Chemicals, a company selling a competitive product, filed a writ petition in August 2018 levelling similar allegations and seeking the blacklisting of STFR licensees.

Bhagwan Karmenge, an agriculturist from Nagpur joined the litigation last year with an intervention application. He supported Embadwar and Nagarjuna Agro Chemicals.

The bench of justice RK Deshpande and justice Milind Jadhav, however, did not find any substance to the allegations.

The court noticed that the PIL and the petition did not elaborate on how farmers were misrepresented or cheated by ICAR and IARI, or how agriculturists suffered because of the STFR meter. The bench instead found the petitions and the intervention were motivated by commercial interests.

“On the contrary, we find that both these petitions and the application for intervention are actuated by [the] ulterior motive of having commercial gain by eliminating the competition and creating monopoly using the process of the court,” said the bench.

The bench said Nagarjuna Agro Chemicals had made inconsistent and contradictory claims in its petition. “In our view, the court has to be intolerant to such a situation and the practice of filing such frivolous and vexatious litigation, without having any genuine interest and lacking in all bona fides,” it said.”