PIL improper where legal remedies exist: Punjab and Haryana HC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that public interest litigations cannot be used to bypass existing legal remedies. The court ruled approaching the High Court directly through a PIL to address a particular grievance was “inappropriate and impermissible” when a statutory framework already existed.

“Where a robust and adequate statutory framework already subsists, providing efficacious mechanisms and prescribed procedures for the redressal of a particular grievance, the invocation of the extraordinary jurisdiction of this court by way of a PIL, in lieu of availing the remedies specifically ordained by the extant statutory provisions, is manifestly inappropriate and, indeed, impermissible,” the Bench asserted.

The ruling by the Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sumeet Goel came in the backdrop of a petition seeking action against online opinion-trading and betting platforms under public gambling laws. The Bench noted that with the Haryana Prevention of Public Gambling Act, 2025, and other legal mechanisms were in place. As such, the petitioner must first pursue those options instead of moving the High Court.

Advocate Anuj Malik — through senior advocate and Punjab’s former advocate-general Atul Nanda with counsel Rameeza Hakim — had moved the high court for “immediate and appropriate action” to restrain all online opinion-trading platforms, mobile apps, websites and digital mediums from advertising, promoting or marketing betting and wagering activities. The petition argued that such acts violated the Public Gambling Act and other laws.

Taking up the matter, the Bench referred to in detail the historical evolution and significance of PILs. “The very genesis of Public Interest Litigation, an innovation that blossomed through a series of seminal judicial pronouncements emblematic of judicial activism, has, in contemporary jurisdiction, assumed an unparalleled salience. It serves an indispensable instrument for catalysing profound societal transformations; fostering essential reforms”.

The Bench noted that the intrinsic value and necessity of PILs as a powerful means to drive social change and systemic reform remained beyond dispute nearly 50 years after the Supreme Court first agreed to entertain such petitions. The Bench observed that constitutional courts derived their authority in PIL matters from their broad writ jurisdiction, which equipped them with expansive powers to ensure justice and to vigilantly protect fundamental constitutional rights and other legal entitlements of the people.

The Bench added that the High Court had consistently exercised caution and self-restraint despite their broad and pervasive jurisdiction. Examining the present petition, the Bench noted the existence of “adequate statutory frameworks for redressal of the grievances articulated,” including The Haryana Prevention of Public Gambling Act, 2025.

“There arises no occasion for this Court to entertain the petition,” the Bench held. Disposing of the PILs, the court observed that the petitioner was at liberty to raise the grievance before the authorities concerned in terms of extant laws, including The Haryana Prevention of Public Gambling Act, 2025”.