SC junks petition against President, calls it ‘malicious’

‘No litigant can be permitted to browbeat or malign the system’

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation petition filed by a “disgruntled litigant” against President Pranab Mukherjee, calling it an “assault on the Constitution.”

Noting that PIL petition is not a free-for-all to file whatever one pleases against who ever one pleases, a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and R. Banumathi said a “litigant cannot assume that he is the monarch of all he surveys.”

The order came on a petition filed by one Ms. Aninidita against three persons, the first of whom is the President of India.

The petition was filed, the Supreme Court learnt, after the litigant’s appeals filed earlier in the Supreme Court.

2006 verdict

Citing its 2006 judgment in

Rameshwar Prasad and Others versus Union of India , the Bench observed that it has been clearly held that the President cannot be arrayed as a party to a litigation.

The court said individual grievances of a litigant could not be a ground for launching a “malicious” attack on the “system,” especially when high constitutional authorities like the President were involved.