Kochi: The Kerala High Court has directed the central and state governments to file a report explaining whether there is any law to prevent vexatious litigation. The High Court registry pointed out that the Kerala Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Bill, 1994 has not become an Act. The registry submitted that the central government had brought the Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Bill, 2016 but this has also not become a law yet. Considering the submission of the registry, the court observed that the necessity of a law to prevent vexatious litigation was felt very much. It directed the secretary of law and justice department and also the central government to inform the status of the Kerala Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Bill, 1994 and the Central Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Bill, 2016.
The registry will verify and report whether the High Court has framed rules on the subject in view of the observations made by the court in an order in 1994, the court observed. If there is a law in force in Kerala for the prevention of vexatious litigation, the details of the complaints so far made by Paichira Navas in different courts will have to be called for from the court concerned, it added. As many as 52 cases were filed by Navas in the last few years against prominent personalities.
A petition by Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala seeking to quash the order of the Thiruvananthapuram Vigilance Court to conduct a probe against him in a case relating to the appointment of Mr N. Shankar Reddy is pending before the court. It also pointed out that the alleged promotion given to Mr Reddy as Director-General of Police(DG), Vigilance, during the previous UDF government was purely an administrative matter and that there was no misconduct in it.
