There are 1,598 public interest litigations pending before the Supreme Court with the oldest of them having been filed 23 years ago, the apex court has said in its response to an RTI query.
The oldest pending PIl with WP(C) 537/1992 was filed by Sureshwar D Sinha and relates to water pollution linked to industries, domestic sources, sewage, river and sea.
In response to lucknow-based RTI applicant Sanjay Sharma’s query, SC said, “Total number of pending public interest litigation cases as on July 20, 2015, is 1,598 out of which 553 writ petitions pertaining to public interest litigations are pending.
“As per records, the oldest public interest litigation whose status is pending for disposal is WP(C) 537/1992 and its date of filing is July 15, 1992,” it said.
Data “which could be retrieved” from the apex court’s computers show that from two PIls filed in 1994, the number had touched 905 in 2014 and, in 2015, till the time of the reply to the RTI application, a total of 348 PIls had been filed.