Meenakshi temple fire: PIL cannot be filed by merely throwing allegations, says HC

Chennai: Holding that public interest litigation cannot be filed by merely throwing some allegations, without any material, the Madras high court has dismissed a PIL, which sought a direction to the authorities to take action against the executive officer of the Meenakshi Amman temple for the fire accident that took place in the temple in Madurai on February 2, 2018.

A division bench comprising Justices N.Kirubakaran and S.S.Sundar dismissed the PIL filed by P.Lakshmanan. The bench said the petitioner stated that he is a native of Madurai and a member of Hindu Munnani and doing some social activities. It was not in dispute that in the historical temple, there was a fire accident on February 2, 2018. In the entire affidavit filed in support of the petition, the petitioner has not come forward with any specific allegation against N.Natarajan, the executive officer of the temple as to how he was willfully negligent and responsible for the accident. The petitioner has not even produced the copy of first information report relating to the accident, the bench pointed out.

The bench said without even doing some search about the cause of accident, the petitioner has come forward with unfounded allegations.

The petitioner expects this court to conduct a roving enquiry and find out the possibility of executive officer's negligent. Public interest litigation cannot be filed by merely throwing some allegations, without any material.

The petitioner was expected to do some search and get minimum particulars before coming to court. No one would expect a fire accident. It was only an accident that too happened during the night hours on February 2, 2018 and therefore, allegation cannot be made against anybody including the executive officer unless there was proper reason for holding them responsible for the accident. This petition was filed 15 months after the accident, the bench added.