Lawyers need to follow law in petitions, says apex court

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Monday said that lawyers would have to follow the discipline of law while drafting petitions making averments and prayers.

A bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar gave the direction in the course of the hearing of a petition by the Federation of Farmers Association seeking direction for the registration of tractors.

As the counsel for the association said that the tractors should be registered, the court asked under what provisions of Motor Vehicles Act it is provided for the registration of the tractors.

Trying to wriggle out of the query, the counsel said that tractors were being used to carry goods and transport people and they ply on the roads.

At this, Chief Justice Kapadia asked the counsel to show where such an averment was made in the petition. Then the court said that prayers in public interest litigations(PILs) were such as to cover everything under the sky.

Asking the petitioner to go to the high court for the enforcement of the prayer, the court said that it had to be seen if non-registration of tractors was spread all over the country.

Disposing off yet another PIL, the court said that it could not monitor everything sitting in the supreme court. The court said that if there was a violation of a statute or guidelines in a state, then the petitioner could move the high court for the redressal of the grievances.