2. Before we proceed to deal with the facts giving rise to this writ petition, we may repeat what we have said earlier in various orders made by us from time to time dealing with public interest litigation.
We wish to point out with all the emphasis at our command that
public interest litigation which is a strategic arm of the legal aid movement and which is intended to bring justice within the reach of the poor masses, who constitute the low visibility area of humanity, is a totally different kind of litigation from the ordinary traditional litigation which is essentially of an adversary character where there is a dispute between two litigating parties, one making claim or seeking
relief against the other and that other opposing such claim or resisting such
relief.
Public interest litigation is brought before the court not for the purpose of enforcing the right of one individual against another as happens in the case of ordinary litigation, but it is intended to promote and vindicate public interest which demands that violations of constitutional or legal rights of large numbers of people who are poor, ignorant or in a socially or economically disadvantaged position should not go unnoticed and un-redressed. That would be destructive of the
Rule of Law which forms one of the essential elements of public interest in any democratic form of government.
The
Rule of Law does not mean that the protection of the law must be available only to a fortunate few or that the law should be allowed to be prostituted by the
vested interests for protecting and upholding the
status quo under the guise of enforcement of their civil and political rights. The poor too have civil and political rights and the
Rule of Law is meant for them also, though today it exists only on paper and not in reality. If the sugar baro........