(1.) Over the years, public interest litigation has brought immense social change through interventions made and directions issued by this Court. Public interest litigation has been initiated, very rarely, by suo motu exercise of jurisdiction by this Court. On most occasions, it has been initiated through a writ petition filed by activist individuals or organisations[2]. Again, quite infrequently, it has been initiated on the basis of a communication received by this Court[3].
(2.) During the last several decades, public interest litigation has compelled this Court to consider issues relating to the environment, social justice, violation of human rights and disregard for Article 21 of the Constitution; either because of an absence of governance due to the failure of the State to faithfully and sincerely implement laws enacted by Parliament[4] or due to mis-governance by the State, that is, the Central Government, the State Governments and Union Territory Administrations leading to rampant illegalities[5]. The failure of the State to take remedial steps to fill in the gap when there is no operative law[6] , except that enshrined in the Constitution, more particularly Article 21 has resulted in public interest litigation and at least two cases where a treaty obligation ought to be fulfilled[7].
(3.) In recent times, usually and regrettably, the State has chosen to challenge the idea of public interest litigation or denigrate it by chanting the mantra of 'judicial activism' or 'separation of powers'. In most cases, these mantras are nothing but a fig leaf to cover the failure of the State to recognise the existence of the rule of law and the need for providing social justice to the people of the country, as stated in the Preamble to our Constitution. There must be a realization that public interest litigation has given a voice to millions of marginalized sections of society, women and children. Public interest litigation is one of the more important contributions of India to jurisprudence. In fact, the Indian experience has encouraged some other countries to introduce public interest litigation in their jurisprudence.