Supreme Court to lay down guidelines for PILs

The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider the question of laying down the guidelines for entertaining public interest litigations.

"It is better to have some guidelines whether these types of PILs can be entertained," a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said.

The bench said it will examine the question raised by a bench headed by Justice S B Sinha, which had referred a PIL to the Chief Justice in view of the observations relating to the judicial over-reach made by a two-judge bench recently.

Following the order of a bench of Justices A K Mathur and Markanday Katju, which had made observations that in the past, the apex court had exceeded its jurisdiction in entertaining the PILs, the bench headed by Justice Sinha had referred the PIL, which had come before it, to the Chief Justice.

While referring the matter, Justice Sinha had said in view of the recent observations, it was not clear what the power of the court was in dealing with PILs.

The PIL referred to the Chief Justice was related to rehabilitation of sex workers.