The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia for families of those lawyers who died before the age of 60, whether by COVID or any other disease, saying that lives of lawyers cannot be said to be “more precious” than others.
Observing that it cannot encourage filing of “bogus” public interest litigation (PIL) by lawyers, a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud said the plea is a “publicity interest litigation” and not a single relevant ground has been raised in it.
Lawyer and petitioner Pradeep Kumar Yadav, in his plea, sought directions to the Centre to pay ex-gratia to the kin of deceased lawyers arguing that the government has been providing financial aid to other communities in the society amid the pandemic.
“Are other people of the society not important,” the bench told advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav, who had filed the petition.
“This is a publicity interest litigation and just because you are in black coat does not mean your life is more precious than others,” the bench observed, adding, “We must not encourage lawyers to file bogus PILs.”
The top court, which observed that “cut-copy-paste” has been done in the plea, said it would not happen that lawyers will file PIL like this to demand compensation and the court will allow it. It said several people have died of COVID-19 and lawyers cannot be an exception.
Yadav requested the bench that he will withdraw the plea and file it with better grounds. The bench, however, dismissed the petition with a cost of Rs 10,000 payable to the Supreme Court Bar Association within a week. In his plea, Yadav had arrayed the Centre, Bar Council of India and several other bar bodies as respondents.
The petition had sought directions to the respondents to pay ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh to the kin of advocate, who have died within 60 years whether from COVID-19 or any other manner, and in cases of pandemic, additional monetary help be provided to them.