Division Bench of Rajasthan High Court comprising Chief Justice Akil Kureshi and Justice Sudesh Bansal while dealing with a Plea regarding embezzlement of Public Fund observed that in public interest litigation, the petitioner is not absolved of producing at least a basic proof of the allegations leveled by him.
Background:
In this public interest petition, the petitioner has made allegations that certain officials of the Government have embezzled public funds by committing irregularities in public works contracts.
The allegations include irregular payments in the execution of the construction work of one Gaurav Path at Sikar during which according to the petitioner unauthorized overpayments were made.
Observation made by the Court:
The state authorities appeared and filed a reply dated 30.08.2019 dealing with each and every allegation of the petitioner and pointing out that the work as per the contract awarded or in some cases the extra work as needed was carried out and payments were made only after due verification and satisfaction of the authorities.
The bench observed that Since two and half years of filing the reply, the petitioner has not filed any rejoinder disputing any of the averments made in the reply. Even otherwise found that the petition with long pleadings are long in averments but short in contents. The allegations made in the petition would require supporting evidence.
Even in a public interest petition, the petitioner is not absolved of producing at least basic proof of his allegations. When it comes to allegations of corruption in public life the Court would certainly view the allegations seriously and deal with them with caution. However without any supporting materials and particularly when the reply filed by the Government which covers and denies all averments of the petitioner and the reply has remained uncontroverted, Bench reached the conclusion to not propose to carry this public interest petition any further.
Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.
Case Title: Lakhpat Ola v. the State of Rajasthan
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