Benefits
- democratized justice for common man, deepened access to judiciary
- justice more affordable
- Husainara Khatoon v State of Bihar: helped uncovering plights of undertrial prisoners
- effective enforcement of Fundamental Rights
- check on exercise of powers by other organs of state
Concerns
- judicial overreach
- violation of separation of power (DPSP 50)
- often PIL have ulterior motives
- inc workload on judiciary
Way ahead
- extra attention to scrutiny at early stage (hence save time by not entertaining baseless PIL)
- dubious/ frivolous PIL be rejected by court with exemplary cost
- court should restrain itself on entering domain of other organs on pretext of PIL (sep of power)
- exec/legis should have grievance redressal mechanism (so judiciary burden less)
- citizens trust judiciary more; exec/legis must strive to build better rapport and trust among citizens
- Judges shouldn’t be over enthusiast in giving dirn to exec due to populist reasons