The Supreme Court has refused to recall an order passed by it quashing a petition against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley which accused him of plundering the capital reserves of the RBI to waive off the loans of certain companies.
Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma had filed a petition against the Finance Minister which was not just rejected by the Supreme Court but resulted in a fine of Rs 50K being imposed by the court on Sharma. The Bench comprising of CJI Gogoi, Justice S S Kaul and Justice K M Joseph which had quashed the petition, today refused to recall its order of quashing the petition. “We are not going to recall our order. You deposit Rs 50,000 then only we will hear your any old or new petition,” the bench remarked.
The Bench had rebuked Advocate Sharma for filing the frivolous petition. “We do not find any credible reason to heed this PIL. You have done great work in the past. You want us to rein in the finance minister. Why are you damaging your credibility,” the court said.
CJI Gogoi had even warned Sharma that he would be banned from filing PILs. “Mr Sharma, the day has come to ban you from filing PILs”, the CJI had commented. Advocate Sharma has a history of his PILs being rejected by the apex court. He has also been fined on at least two previous occasions for filing ‘frivolous’ petitions.