The Madras High Court Bench here has dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by a car mechanic, accusing Meenakshi Hospital in Thanjavur of having flouted building norms, after suspecting that he had approached the court “either for personal gain or private profit either for himself or as proxy to others.”
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and S.S. Sundar said that it would actually be against public interest to entertain petitions filed by people like the petitioner, S. Syed Kamarudheen of Madurai, since he did not appear to espouse the cause of public as per stipulations laid down by the Supreme Court on entertaining PIL petitions.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had accused the hospital of not obtaining No Objection Certificate from the Station Commander of Indian Air Force base situated about 2.4 km from the hospital besides not complying with various other norms to be followed as per the building plan approved by the Directorate of Town and Country Planning.
However, rebutting the allegations, the hospital management contended that the petitioner had no locus standi to file the case. Claiming that the materials submitted by the petitioner before the court could not be within his reach, it stated that the petitioner had been “set up by other persons who have vested interests in troubling the Managing Director of the hospital.”
