Edited Excerpt from Justice Bhagwati’s Judgment in SP Gupta Case
The traditional rule in regard to locus standi is that judicial redress is available only to a person who has suffered a legal injury by reason of violation of his legal right or legally protected interest by the impugned action of the State or a public authority or any other person or who is likely to suffer a legal injury by reason of threatened violation of his legal right or legally protected interest by any such action.
Old Rule of Locus Standi
The basis of entitlement to judicial redress is personal injury to property, body, mind or reputation arising from violation, actual or threatened, of the legal right or legally protected interest of the person seeking such redress. This is a rule of ancient vintage and it arose during an era when private law dominated the legal scene and public law had not yet been born.
Re Sidebotham, Ex parte Sidebotham
The leading case in which this rule was enunciated and which marks the starting point of almost every discussion on locus standi is Re Sidebotham, Ex parte Sidebotham [14] Ch. 453 : 42 LT 783 : 28 WR 715 (CA)). There the Court was concerned with the question whether the appellant could be said to be a ‘person aggrieved’ so as to be entitled to maintain the appeal. The Court in a unanimous view held that the appellant was not entitled to maintain the appeal because he was not a person aggrieved’ by the decision of the lower court.
James L. J. gave a definition of ‘person aggrieved’ which, though given in the context of the right to appeal against a decision of a lower court, has been applied widely in determining the standing of a person to seek judicial redress, with the result that it has stultified the growth of the law in regard to judicial remedies. The learned Lord Justice said that a ‘person aggrieved’ must be a man “who has suffered a legal grievance, a man against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully deprived him of something or wrongfully refused him something or wrongfully affected his title to something” .
This definition was approved by Lord Esher M. R. in In re Reed, Bowen & Co., Ex parte Official Receiver (19 QBD 174 : 56 LT 876 : 35 WR 660 (CA)) and the learned Master of the Rolls made it clear that when James L. J. said that a person aggrieved must be a man against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully refused him of something, he obviously meant that the person aggrieved must be a man who has been refused something which he had a right to demand. There have been numerous subsequent decisions of the English courts where this definition has been applied for the purpose of determining whether the person seeking judicial redress had locus standi to maintain the action.
Right-duty pattern in Locus Standi
It will be seen that, according to this rule, it is only a person who has suffered a specific legal injury by reason of actual or threatened violation of his legal right or legally protected interest who can bring an action for judicial redress. Now obviously where an applicant has a legal right or a legally protected interest, the violation of which would result in legal injury to him, there must be a corresponding duty owed by the other party to the applicant. This rule in regard to locus standi thus postulates a right-duty pattern which is commonly to be found in private law litigation.
But, narrow and rigid though this rule may be, there are a few exceptions to it which have been evolved by the courts over the years. In the first place a ratepayer of a local authority is accorded standing to challenge an illegal action of the local authority. Thus, a ratepayer can question the action of the municipality in granting a cinema licence to a person, vide: K. Ramadas Shenoy v. Chief Officers, Town Municipal Council, Udipi).
The reason for this liberalisation of the rule in the case of a taxpayer of a municipality is that his interest in the application of the money of the municipality is direct and immediate and he has a close relationship with the municipality. The courts in India have, in taking this view, followed the decisions of the English courts.
Secondly, if a person is entitled to participate in the proceedings relating to the decision-making process culminating in the impugned decision, he would have locus standi to maintain an action challenging the impugned decision, vide : Queen v. Bowman (1898 1 QB 663 : 67 LJQB 463 : 78 LT 230) where it was held that any member of the public had a right to be heard in opposition to an application for a licence and having such right, the applicant was entitle to ask for mandamus directing the licencing Justices to hear and determine the application for licence according to law.
Thirdly, the statute itself may expressly recognise the locus standi of an applicant, even though no legal right or legally protected interest of the applicant has been violated resulting in legal injury to him. For example, in Fasbhai Motibhai Desai v. Roshan Kumar, this Court noticed that the Bombay Cinematograph Act, 1918 and the Bombay Cinema Rules, 1954 made under that Act, recognised a special interest of persons residing, on concerned with any institution such as a school, temple, mosque etc. located within a distance of 200 yards of the site on which the cinema house is proposed to be constructed and held that as the petitioner.
There is also another exception which has been carved out of this strict rule of standing which requires that the applicant for judicial redress must have suffered a legal wrong or injury in order to entitle him to maintain an action for such redress.
It is clear that, having regard to this rule, no one can ordinarily seek judicial redress for legal injury suffered by another person; it is only such other person who must bring action for judicial redress. It is on this principle that the Supreme Court of the United Stated held in U.S. v. Raines 362 US 17 : 4 L Ed 2d 524 1960) that a litigant may only assert his own constitutional rights or immunities and save in exceptional cases, no person can claim standing to vindicate the constitutional rights of a third party.
But it must now be regarded as well-settled law where a person who has suffered a legal wrong or a legal injury or whose legal right or legally protected interest is violated, is unable to approach the court on account of some disability or it is not practicable for him to move the court of some other sufficient reasons, such as his socially or economically disadvantaged position, some other person can invoke assistance of the court for the purpose of providing judicial redress to the person wronged or inured, so that the legal wrong or injury caused to such person does not go unredressed and justice is done to him.
Take for example, the case of a minor to whom a legal wrong has been done or a legal injury caused. He obviously cannot on his own approach the court because his disability arising from minority. The law therefor provides that any other person acting as his next friend may bring an action in his name for judicial redress, vide : Order XXXII of the Code of Civil Procedure.
So also where a person is detained and is therefore not in a position to move the court for securing his release, any other person may file an application for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the legality of his detention.
Departure for Strict Rule of Locus Standi
Even in our own country we have recognised this departure from the strict rule of locus standi in cases where there has been a violation of the constitutional or legal rights of persons who by reason of their socially or economically disadvantaged position are unable to approach the court for judicial redress. We have in such cases permitted a member of the public to move the court of enforcement of the constitutional or legal rights of such persons and judicial redress for the legal wrong or legal injury caused to them.
Take for example, the decision of this Court in Sunil Batra (II) v. Delhi Administration) where this Court accepted the habeas corpus petition of a prisoner complaining of brutal assault by a head warden on another prisoner.
Locus Standi in Writ Petitions
It may therefore now be taken as well established that where a legal wrong or a legal injury is caused to a person or to a determinate class of person by reason of violation of any constitutional or legal right or any burden is imposed in contravention of any constitutional or legal provision or without authority of law or any such legal wrong or legal injury or illegal burden is threatened and such person or determinate class of persons is by reason of poverty, helplessness or disability or socially or economically disadvantaged position, unable to approach the court for relief, any member of the public can maintain an application for an appropriate direction, order or writ in the High Court under Article 226 and in case of breach of any fundamental right of such person or determinate class of persons, in this Court under Article 32 seeking judicial redress for the legal wrong or injury caused to such person or determinate class of person.
Where the weaker sections of the community are concerned, such as under-trial prisoners languishing in jails without a trial, inmates of the Protective Home in Agra, or Harijan workers engaged in road construction in the district of Ajmer, who are living in poverty and destitution, who are barely eking out a miserable existence with their sweat and toil, who are helpless victims of an exploitative society and who do not have easy access to justice, this Court will not insist on a regular writ petition to be filed by the public-spirited individual espousing their cause and seeking relief for them.
This Court will readily respond even to a letter addressed by such individual acting pro bono publico. It is true that there are rules made by this Court prescribing the procedure for moving this Court for relief under Article 32 and they require various formalities to be gone through by a person seeking to approach this Court. But it must not be forgotten that procedure is but a handmaiden of justice and the cause of justice can never be allowed to be thwarted by any procedural technicalities. The court would therefore unhesitatingly and without the slightest qualms of conscience cast aside the technical rules of procedure in the exercise of its dispensing power and treat the letter of the public-minded individual as a writ petition and act upon it.
Today a vast revolution is taking place in the judicial process; the theatre of the law is fast changing and the problems of the poor are coming to the forefront. The court has to innovate new methods and devise new strategies for the purpose of providing access to justice to large masses of people who are denied their basic human rights and to whom freedom and liberty have no meaning.
The only way in which this can be done is by entertaining writ petitions and even letters from public spirited individuals seeking judicial redress for the benefit of persons who have suffered a legal wrong or a legal injury or whose constitutional or legal right has been violated but who by reason of their poverty or socially or economically disadvantaged position are unable to approach the court for relief.
It is in this spirit that the court has been entertaining letters for judicial redress and treating them as writ petitions and we hope and trust that the High Courts of the country will also adopt this pro-active, goal oriented approach. But we must hasten to make it clear that the individual who moves the court for judicial redress in cases of this kind must be acting bona fide with a view to vindicating the cause of justice and if he is acting for personal gain or private profit or out of political motivation or other oblique consideration, the court should not allow itself to be activise at the instance of such person and must reject his application at the threshold, whether it be in the form of a letter addressed to the court or even in the form of a regular writ petition filed in court.
We may also point out that as a matter of prudence and not as a rule of law, the court may confine this strategic exercise of jurisdiction to cases where legal wrong or legal injury is caused to a determinate class or group of persons or the constitutional or legal right or such determinate class or group of persons is violated and as far as possible, not entertain cases off individual wrong or injury at the instance of a third party, where there is an effective legal-aid organisation which can take care of such cases.
Reference
S.P. Gupta & v Union of India (1981)