NEW DELHI: The Law Commission has suggested enactment of legislation to prevent filing of frivolous and vexatious litigations, both civil and criminal, in courts and to ensure speedy disposal of other pending cases. However, such a bar will not apply to writ petitions filed in High Courts under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The Commission, headed by Justice M. Jagannadha Rao, in its 192nd report says the main purpose of enacting a law on the subject is to prevent a person from instituting or continuing vexatious proceedings habitually and without reasonable ground in the High Courts and subordinate courts.

The Supreme Court in a series of judgments has deprecated the filing of public interest petitions for the sake of publicity and has cautioned High Courts not to entertain such petitions from busy bodies.

Taking a cue from the apex court, the Commission has recommended that if a person files frivolous petitions intended to harass the defendant or is an abuse of the process of the court, the Advocate-General or the Registrar of the High Court or the person against whom such cases are filed may move the High Court to declare the person a `vexatious litigant.' Once such a declaration is made, it is published in the Gazette and communicated to all subordinate courts. Thereafter, he can file any petition only with the permission of the court. If he files a case without obtaining permission the proposed or pending case filed by him, the court will dismissed it with costs.

Similar laws

The Commission has quoted extensively from the laws in vogue in the United Kingdom, the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia where filing of vexatious petitions are dealt firmly by the courts. It has pointed out that in the former State of Madras, a law was enacted in 1949 called the Madras Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act and later amended as Tamil Nadu Adaptation of Laws Order, 1969. Even Maharashtra has a law: the Maharashtra Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act, 1971.

The report, placed in Parliament recently, contains a model Bill for the government to proceed further in getting a Central legislation enacted.

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