MUMBAI: It was a year of suo motu public interest litigation before the Bombay High Court in 2024. The HC principal bench showed that the day’s news, which makes headlines for the masses, touches a judicial chord too. Public issues took centre stage as the court swung into action to set things right and get stakeholders on the same platform.
2024 saw about half a dozen cases across various vital issues, from rising AQIs to working towards a slum-free Mumbai, tackling microplastics in marine life to making municipal corporations pay for deaths caused by their negligence, and addressing sordid sex crimes against children to the rights of undertrials.
The HC converted several Times of India articles into PIL on its own motion. One was an article on microplastics in the ocean off Mumbai, harmful to fish. Another was when the HC found an assault so brutal on pre-schoolers in Badlapur that it turned a TOI and other articles into suo motu PIL to monitor the probe.
Then there was a vital review and audit of the 50-year-old Maharashtra Slum Act and its efficacy in slum rehabilitation schemes. The noxious air over the city got the Chief Justice’s anxious attention. The HC delved into the reasons for the harmful haze and the hazy implementation of policies.
The seemingly far-flung Badlapur—made famous by a Varun Dhawan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer with the name—sprung into the societal spotlight. Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan initiated a PIL to monitor the case. Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya immediately approved. The HC delved into the issue to ensure justice in this and other such sordid cases.
A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre noticed the issue of undertrials lodged in various prisons not being ferried to court on dates set for their remand or trials, which was going unanswered by the State. When the court learned many do not get to court on their scheduled dates for lack of police escort, the HC actively appointed amicus curiae (friend of court) in advocate Satyavrat Joshi to visit prisons and assist it in employing technology to produce them virtually, via videoconferencing.
Slums that sprawl across most of the cityscape and even grow vertically now, a bane that town planners struggled with for decades. The HC tasked itself with auditing the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance And Redevelopment) Act, 1971, which was meant to rehouse the illegal squatters into legal tenements, up to a cut-off year, and ensure land is freed for its reserved use, be it a playground or school. The HC Chief Justice, on directions of the Supreme Court, constituted a special division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sunderasan to hear the matter in August.
It appointed former Advocate General, senior counsel Darius Khambata, senior advocate Sharan Jagtiani, and advocate Naira Jejeebhoy as special counsel to assist it in its exercise. This month, the present Advocate General Birendra Saraf informed the new bench of Justices Kulkarni and Advait Sethna that by January 15, 2025, the State would deliberate on a plethora of suggestions from all stakeholders to explore possible solutions.
In October, CJ Upadhyaya and Justice MM Sathaye observed how plastic waste, especially microplastics, is impacting not only human life but marine life in the sea, as depicted in a report titled “An Ocean-sized plastic problem and how it’s taking a churn for the worse,” published in Times of India, which cited a study saying “70 percent of waste flowing into Mumbai’s creeks and rivers is plastic.”
“The situation is alarming and needs to be addressed,’’ said the bench.
In April, the then HC Judge Justice Gautam Patel, presiding with Justice Kamal Khata, with the approval of the CJ, turned another news report on the deaths of two boys aged 4 and 5 years, who fell in an uncovered water tank in a civic garden in Wadala, into a suo motu PIL. The HC not only ensured compensation of Rs 10 lakh is paid to the children’s father but sought to look at public law issues on a “larger canvas.”
Railways has a dedicated tribunal, policy, and framework for compensation for negligent death cases. The HC appointed Sharan Jagtiani and Mayur Khandeparkar as amicus and said, “It seems to us inconceivable that a Municipal Corporation could have no responsibility or liability at all if it is demonstrated that an accident or a death has been caused due to negligence on the part of the Corporation concerned.”
On air pollution, the HC, which took suo motu action late last year, majorly heard it in 2024. The CJ and Justice Girish Kulkarni this month asked tough questions to the State on its “uncontrolled traffic management’’ that directly leads to rising pollution and long hours to reach the suburbs from the city.
“Innocent citizens cannot be victims of air pollution and helplessly suffer on such a count, due to inaction of the authorities in taking appropriate, timely and continuous measures,” the bench said, while directing urgent action.
The issues and the hearing will spill over to 2025, when possible solutions may emerge, given the emergent situation as the HC notes.
WHAT HC SAID IN COURT
December 21, 2024: “You should have seen the pollution today. It was the worst. From Marine Drive, we could not see the other side of the sea. We cannot always survive on the almighty blessing of the winds, but we have to have our solution too…This is a situation of emergency. If we do not take care of present times, what is going to happen in future is anybody’s guess.”—CJ Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Girish Kulkarni.
April 2024: “What is the price of a human life in this city? Are the so-called “budgetary constraints” of the BMC an answer for a failure to provide minimal safety precautions during civic works? There will be issues regarding civic responsibility, questions of negligence and financial responsibility as well, not just for the individual officers of the BMC but also for the Corporation as a body,’’ the HC bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Kamal Khata.