Advocates of the Bombay high court have said that they are witnessing a new trend being adopted by the judges to deter and discourage petty and frivolous petitions from wasting the time of the court.

The judges have been levying heavy fines ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh. This is being done by exercising the inherent powers vested in the judges by section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Speaking about the trend, advocate Ashish Deshmukh, senior counsel and former member of the state Bar Council said, “In most cases that were penalised and dismissed, the court has observed that the case had no ground or was weak and hearing the case resulted in wastage of time of the court and the entire judicial system. Due to this reason, the judges have been levying penalties with a view to discourage the petitioners from misusing the judicial remedy.”

While explaining the need for the courts to resort to such a practice, senior counsel advocate Abbas Kazmi said that in recent times the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) option was being misused by people with vested interests. “Many petitions are filed by people with malafide intentions who withdraw the petitions after a couple of hearings as they manage to reach a settlement with the respondent. The courts have been witness to this exploitation of the judicial machinery and decided to put an end to it by way of levying penalties on counsels and petitioners,” said Mr Kazmi.