Mehbooba Mufti’s PIL Thrown Out by J&K High Court
Court calls petition politically motivated, vague and aimed at electoral mileage
- J&K High Court rejects Mehbooba Mufti’s PIL on undertrial transfers
- Court terms plea politically motivated and unsupported by facts
- Judges say PILs cannot be tools for political or electoral advantage
- Mufti held to have no locus standi in the matter
GG News Bureau
Jammu, 24th Dec: In a setback to People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has dismissed her Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking transfer of undertrial prisoners lodged outside the Union Territory to local jails.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal termed the petition “politically motivated, vague, and unsupported by facts,” observing that it appeared aimed at garnering political mileage rather than addressing genuine public interest concerns.
The court said that PIL jurisdiction cannot be used as a platform for political campaigns or electoral advantage. “Public interest litigation is not a tool for advancing political agendas or turning the judiciary into a political arena. Courts must remain impartial and not be exploited for electoral gain,” the bench observed in its 15-page order.
The court further noted that undertrial prisoners already have adequate judicial remedies available to address grievances related to their detention. The failure of the prisoners to approach courts, it said, indicated that they were not genuinely aggrieved by their detention in prisons outside Jammu and Kashmir.
“The omission on their part to avail legal remedies suggests that they are not truly aggrieved by their continued detention outside the Union Territory,” the court remarked.
Dismissing the plea, the High Court held that Mehbooba Mufti stood as a third-party stranger to the issue and therefore lacked locus standi to invoke the court’s jurisdiction. The litigation was described as “misconceived” and was dismissed accordingly.
