SC asks J-K HC to take sympathetic view towards law student whose PIL was dismissed with costs

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court to take a sympathetic view toward a law student whose PIL was dismissed with costs and adverse observations. A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli directed the petitioner to place an affidavit before the High Court tendering an unqualified apology.

"We permit the petitioner to place an affidavit before the High Court tendering an unqualified apology for the manner in which the petition was drafted and even otherwise. The High Court is requested to take a sympathetic view if a genuine apology is placed before the Chief Justice on an affidavit so as to obviate any adverse consequences in the career prospects of the petitioner in the future.

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"The petitioner has stated before this court that the costs imposed by the High Court have been deposited," the bench said. The counsel for the student submitted that the only point on which the appeal is being pressed is that the petitioner is a young law graduate and the observations which have been made by the High Court in its impugned judgement dated September 8, 2021, may mar his prospects.

The high court had last year dismissed the PIL filed by Nikhil Padha with a token cost of Rs 10,000 and said that the demeanor of the petitioner while presenting the case clearly reflected that he has been set up politically to unnecessarily make out an international issue of human rights violation.

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The plea had sought to reopen the Jammu and Kashmir Human Rights Commission, Jammu and Kashmir Women Commission, and Jammu and Kashmir Accountability Commission, to adjudicate the pending cases. The PIL had also sought a separate reporting agency to be instituted consisting of at least one judicial member to record the cases of human rights violations.