SC raps advocate Ashwini Upadhyay for filing 'meaningless' PILs

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay for filing a series of 'meaningless' Public Interest Litigations (PILs) and warned that he might be banned from filing PILs in the future.

Upadhyay had filed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to impose an upper limit of Rs 2,000 per person per year on political donations in cash. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi slammed Upadhyay for filing a number of petitions regarding election issues, and said, "Just because we have heard some matters of this gentleman, three PILs are filed every day and all regarding elections. Three PILs are coming tomorrow and one was mentioned today."

"We should ban certain people from filing PILs. This petition is without any meaning. If some petitions are allowed, one cannot file a petition every day. Caution your client, one more improper petition and we will ban him," the apex court told the counsel, representing Upadhyay in the case.

In his plea, Upadhyay, apart from seeking a limit on donations to political parties, had also sought the court's direction on the exemption under Section 13A of the Income Tax Act given only to those political parties which contest elections and win seats in the Parliament or Legislative Assemblies in line with the recommendations of the Election Commission.