The Allahabad High Court has fumingly dismissed a PIL seeking direction to UP CM, Yogi Adityanath to disclose his full and actual name in public domain and produce all documents thereto and to take oath of office and secrecy under his real name and refrain from using the word 'Yogi' as title in his official communication.
The petitioner brought on record, documents from Lok Sabha and National Election Watch website, nomination paper for the State Assembly Election, wherein his name was mentioned in two diferrent formats, 'Aditya Nath' and 'Adityanath'. It was argued that four sets of nomination papers were filed by the same person and only one person contested the election.
An RTI application to this regard has not been furnished. It was submitted that the CM is using different names at different places. He had even taken oath while pronouncing his name differently. Hence, a direction is required to be issued to him for disclosing his correct name. More than 25 crore residents of the State of Uttar Pradesh want answer.
To stake his claim as public spirited person, he mentioned that he has filed a writ petition for correction of the name of our country as mentioned in Article 1 of the Constitution of India before Supreme Court.
Learned AAG argued the maintainability of the petition contending that writ cannot be sustained against an individual. He further submitted that the petitioner has not disclosed his credentials as required under sub-rule (3-A) of Rule 1 of Chapter XXII of the High Court Rules. To buttress the submissions, he cited Dattaraj Nathuji Thaware Vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors, 2004 Latest Caselaw 713 SC, State of Uttaranchal Vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal & Ors., 2010 Latest Caselaw 70 SC and submitted that the present petition have been filed for ulterior motive.
The Court referred to Dattaraj Nathuji Thaware Vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors, 2004 Latest Caselaw 713 SC wherein the Court opined that public interest litigation is a weapon to be used with great care and circumspection. The Court has to be careful in lifting the veil and see what is the real objective behind. The process should not be allowed to be misused. Many petitions are filed just with a view to gain cheap publicity.
The Court noted that the petitioner concealed from court that he participated in 2020 elections and noted that being a political person, he deliberately chose to conceal his identity while filing the writ petition, apparently with some ulterior motive or cheap publicity.
It was observed that the petitioner misled the Court on multiple occassions, from his residence to his literacy. The Court also dwelled upon the reliability of the documents and stated that the same cannot be trusted in plain sight.
Declaring the petition as vague and frivolous, the court dismissed the same with cost of ₹1,00,000/- in order to discourage such litigations.
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