AI OCR 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (1) TMI 114
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....service being provided against such fee has been imposed by the State. It has further been pleaded that small scale exporters will be unable to pay such exorbitant fee mandatorily which will prevent such exporters from conducting their business resulting in financial losses to them. It has further been alleged that the respondent no. 1 has ignored the hardships being faced by all exporters, transporters, traders and manufacturers and that the notifications suffer from vice of violation of Article 14 and Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution and are also violative of Article 265 of the Constitution. It is also alleged that the action of the State is contrary to the trade policy and the impugned notifications are causing undue financial hardship to the sections of the business community including exporters without offering any commensurate service in exchange for the fee being charged. 3. Submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that the State has no authority to levy such a fee which is in the nature of compulsory extraction of money from the exporters/transporters. He further submits that any such charge can be levied only under the Customs Act and that the exporters are....
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....rajan & Another vs. Union of India reported in 1959 Supp (1) SCR 779. 5. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. Before entering into the merits of the controversy, the preliminary objection raised by the learned Advocate General about maintainability of the PIL needs to be decided. The record reflects that the writ petitioner is a practicing advocate of this Court unconnected with the business of export. A perusal of the writ petition reveals that in this public interest petition, cause of the exporters has been taken up by projecting the problems which may be faced by them on account of imposition of fee by the impugned notification. The issue of quid pro quo has also been raised which is mainly concerning the exporters. Nothing prevents the exporters to approach the competent Court and raise their grievances. Learned Advocate General has also raised the plea that the impugned levy infact has facilitated such exporters. No exporter is before this Court even in the representative capacity to ascertain this fact. Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Kishore Samrite vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others reported in (2013) 2 SCC 398, considering t....
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..... The disability must be one which the law recognises." 51. Dealing with public interest litigation and the cases instituted by strangers or busybodies, this Court in the following cases cautioned the courts and even required that they be dismissed at the threshold: 51.1. Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdhary, SCC at p. 347 : (SCC para 104) "104. Sarkaria, J. in Jasbhai Motibhai Desai v. Roshan Kumar expressed his view that the application of the busybody should be rejected at the threshold in the following terms : (SCC p. 683, para 37) 'It will be seen that in the context of locus standi to apply for a writ of certiorari, an applicant may ordinarily fall in any of these categories : (i) "person aggrieved"; (ii) "stranger"; (iii) busybody or meddlesome interloper. Persons in the last category are easily distinguishable from those coming under the first two categories. Such persons interfere in things which do not concern them. They masquerade as crusaders for justice. They pretend to act in the name of pro bono publico, though they have no interest of the public or even of their own to protect. They indulge in the pastime of meddling with the judicial process either by forc....
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....ne such requirement at the threshold of the litigation in order to prevent abuse of process of court. In the present case, both the appellant and Respondent 8 are total strangers to the three mentioned petitioners. The appellant, in fact, is a resident of Madhya Pradesh, belonging to a political party and was elected from Constituency Tehsil Lanji in District Balaghat at Madhya Pradesh. He has no roots in Amethi and, in fact, he was a stranger to that place. The appellant as well as Respondent 8 did not even know that the persons on whose behalf they have acted as next friend had shifted their residence in the year 2010 to Hardoia in District Faizabad. They have made false averments in the petition and have withheld true facts from the Court." 6. In the matter of Guruvayoor Devaswom Managing Committee (supra), considering the scope of maintainability of public interest litigation, Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that: "Scope of public interest litigation 41. The courts exercising their power of judicial review found to their dismay that the poorest of the poor, the depraved (sic), the illiterate, the urban and rural unorganized labour sector, women, children, those handicapped ....
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....rocedural propriety was to move over giving place to substantive concerns of the deprivation of rights. The rule of locus standi was diluted. The Court in place of a disinterested and dispassionate adjudicator became an active participant in the dispensation of justice. 46. But with the passage of time, things started taking different shapes. The process was sometimes abused. Proceedings were initiated in the name of public interest litigation for ventilating private disputes. Some petitions were publicity-oriented. 47. A balance was, therefore, required to be struck. The courts started exercising greater care and caution in the matter of exercise of jurisdiction of public interest litigation." 7. Having regard to the nature of issue which has been raised by the petitioner, we are of the opinion that a PIL on such an issue at the instance of an advocate practicing in this Court having no connection with the issue cannot be entertained especially when the affected persons are adequately well off to raise their personal cause in the appropriate judicial proceedings. So far as reliance of learned counsel for the petitioner in the matters of Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (....