New Delhi: No suspension of disbelief was required while lawyers and journalists watched Arvind Gupta argue his case in a packed courtroom in the Delhi high court last week.
As he clutched a petition that he had drafted, Gupta took on India’s policy on the auctioning of mobile telecom spectrum, with no lawyer by his side.
Celebrity crusader: Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy has appeared as petitioner-in-person for many cases, including the one challenging the Union government’s Sethusamudram ship canal project. Arvind Yadav / Hindustan Times
Increasingly, legal observers are noticing a trend where so-called public interest litigations (PILs), such as the one filed by Gupta, often opposing high-profile government projects and national policies, are being argued by the petitioners themselves without assistance from any lawyer.
While most of these petitions have failed, these individuals, known as petitioners-in-person, are increasingly comfortable in taking on the government, arguing a wide range of issues, be it the Ram Sethu dredging project, reservations for other more backward classes in higher education or the telecom policy.
Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Parikh says while such petitioners were not uncommon in the past, the accelerating trend stems from a dearth of “genuine” lawyers who can take up such PILs.
“Genuine, in the sense, those who take up cases with a spirit to contribute to society,” says Parikh, adding that “high fees charged by lawyers is also another reason” for petitioners bypassing professionally trained lawyers.
Some professional lawyers “show willingness to represent you, but keep dilly-dallying and also dissuade you from filing your petition and frustrate your efforts”, says Gupta.
“The genuine ones get involved in so many issues they don’t have time to take up all cases,” he adds.
Gupta filed his petition simply by paying Rs56 to the high court, soon after he read news reports on recent telecom deals, especially one that allowed real estate company Unitech Ltd to sell a big stake in a start-up telecom subsidiary to Norwegian telecom group Telenor ASA for Rs6,120 crore, essentially flipping a lucrative spectrum licence it had recently obtained from the government for Rs1,651 crore.
“There must be no unfair and unjust enrichment of few corporate entities,” says Gupta. “Spectrum should be auctioned in a fair and transparent process.”
The court admitted his PIL and the next hearing is scheduled for 10 December.
Gupta is the founder trustee of the Indian Investors’ Protection Council, a registered non-profit organization that takes legal actions in the interests of Indian investors.
Some petitioners, who are “intelligent, sensible and have a reasonable grasp of the law, choose to argue their own cases even though they can afford lawyers”, says civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who has been handling numerous PILs in the Supreme Court on issues such as testing of genetically-modified crops.