Supreme Court junks plea challenging imposition of ₹5 lakh cost on PIL petitioner in 2023

The Supreme Court on Monday (January 19, 2026) rejected the plea of ​​a Lucknow-based lawyer who claimed that he was imposed a fine of ₹ 5 lakh for filing a “frivolous” PIL in October 2023 instead of ₹ 25,000 as declared in open court.

A bench headed by the then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud (since retired) had on October 13, 2023, dismissed the PIL filed by advocate Ashok Pandey seeking a direction to re-swear Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, currently the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court as the oath was not taken as prescribed under the Constitution.

According to Mr. Pandey, the bench had also made him pay a sum of ₹25,000 in open court for filing the “frivolous” PIL.

He later claimed that the order contained ₹ 5 lakh as fine and now the collector is proposing to file a case against him for recovery of this amount.

“We will go by the order and this order contains Rs five lakh,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Dipankar Datta and Joymalya Bagchi said while rejecting Pandey’s fresh plea seeking modification of the 2023 order and an inquiry into the matter.

“These are all promotional petitions,” the CJI said.

The 2023 PIL had said that when Justice Upadhyaya took oath as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court on July 29 that year, he did not use the word ‘I’ before taking his name, which was against the third schedule of the Constitution.

The bench, which also included justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, had said, “There is a limit to levity…”

“The prayers expressed in the case seek a fresh oath of office to Justice DK Upadhyay as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court. Moreover, the Governor and chief minister of Goa state that Daman and Diu were not invited to the ceremony,” the bench said. he said.

“This is a frivolous attempt to use the jurisdiction of PIL just to generate some publicity… such frivolous PILs consume the court’s time and distract the court from dealing with important issues,” the bench said, adding that now is the time to impose fines for filing such cases.

“We need to sit down, read about these issues and burn our midnight oil… This is pretty serious,” the board said.