1.25 lakh writ pleas, but only 8 genuine

Three decades ago, former Chief Justice of India P. N. Bhagwati had devised a mechanism for registering of a writ petition even on a simple onepage letter from a person to the Supreme Court about his grievance and use of its special powers under Article 32 of the Constitution to entertain it as public interest litigation.

But over the years people seem to be using the facility as a “letter- writing practice” as during the past five years out of 1.25 lakh letters written directly to the CJI or other judges, only eight could stand judicial scrutiny to be treated as writ petitions under Article 32.

Thus on an average, 25,000 letters were received by the SC administration every year but ironically hardly any of them stood the strict judicial scrutiny. Article 32 gives the top court special powers to intervene in any “genuine” complaint, irrespective of the fact whether it is filed as per the proper procedure of law or just mailed in the form of a simple one- page letter.

The explosion in writing letters to SC judges has been revealed in reply to an RTI application asking the top court administration as to how many direct communications were received from the common man during the past five years by the judges directly about their grievances and how may of them were actually converted into writ petitions.