S.P. Gupta v. President of India (1982)

The rule of standing is that only a person whose own right is infringed may sue. Applied to the people public interest litigation is meant to serve — bonded labourers, undertrials, pavement dwellers, the illiterate poor — that rule is a bar, because the very disadvantage that produced the violation is what keeps them out of court.

S.P. Gupta removes the bar. For this paper it is the first authority in any PIL answer and the first ground in any PIL petition, because a petition that cannot establish standing never reaches its merits.

The case arose in the context of constitutional litigation about the judiciary in which the petitioners were not themselves the persons directly aggrieved in the traditional sense. What the course takes from it is the proposition on standing, stated by Bhagwati J., and that proposition is what you must be able to reproduce.

Where a legal wrong or injury is caused to a person or to a determinate class by violation of a constitutional or legal right, and that person or class cannot approach the court because of poverty, helplessness, disability, or social or economic disadvantage, then any member of the public may apply:

• to the High Court under Article 226; and
• for breach of fundamental rights, to the Supreme Court under Article 32.

1. Ask what standing is for. It exists to ensure that the court decides a real grievance at the instance of someone with a genuine interest, not to shield a violation from scrutiny because the victim is too poor to complain.
2. Identify the disabling condition precisely. The relaxation is not at large: it operates where the affected person or determinate class is disabled from coming by poverty, helplessness, disability or social or economic disadvantage. That condition is an element of the case, to be pleaded and proved.
3. Match the remedy to the right. Article 226 covers legal as well as constitutional rights; Article 32 is confined to fundamental rights. Choosing the wrong Article is a defect in the petition, not a technicality.
4. Let a member of the public act, not a busybody. The petitioner acts for the class, which is why the petition must establish the class, the violation and the disability rather than the petitioner's own interest.

It opens the PIL question. The structure the course recommends is: S.P. Gupta on standing, PUDR on the nature of PIL, Bandhua Mukti Morcha on procedure and M.C. Mehta on remedies; then the research method — factual and legal categories, primary and secondary sources, expert body reports.

It is also the citation that goes into the petition itself. A PIL petition sets out standing, the facts with annexures, the grounds, the absence of laches, the absence of an alternative remedy, and numbered self-contained prayers, under Article 32 for fundamental rights or Article 226 otherwise — and the standing paragraph is where this case is cited, alongside the evidence of why the affected persons cannot come themselves.

It disposes of the objection that the petitioner is a stranger to the dispute.

It does not decide the procedure the court will follow once the petition is admitted (Bandhua Mukti Morcha), the remedies available (M.C. Mehta), or the limits on frivolous public interest petitions, which this course does not cover. Nor does it dispense with proof: because the petitioner is not the victim, the court expects the petition to establish the facts of the violation, the class affected, the duty broken and the reason the affected people cannot come — which means the research must gather facts, often empirical, and not only law.