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A Karnataka High Court bench of Chief Justice Rituraj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Magdum yesterday pulled up a litigant for filing a Public Interest Litigation challenging the appointment of Registrar of Bangalore University.

The petitioner contended that he is a public spirited person and an RTI activist for minorities. He further submitted that does not have any personal gain in filing the instant PIL and informed the court that he had filed the PIL for a common cause and in the interest of Bangalore University and there is no legal nexus.The Petitioner submitted that the Registrar has been wrongly appointed and that he is not eligible for the post in question.He challenged the appointment of the Registrar, which was notified on 26.11.2021.

He further submitted that writ of mandamus has been further sought to appoint eligible person for the post of registrar as per Section 10 Karnataka State University Act.

The court on hearing the petitioner noted that when the counsel for the petitioner was put to the question of maintainability of PIL in a service matter, he has not been able to provide any satisfactory reply under these circumstances.

The court held that it was of the view that the Writ Petition in the garb of PIL challenging the appointment of a particular post in service of a university, is not maintainable. The court further held that PILs cannot be filed in service matters except by way of a writ of quo warranto for which the appointment must be shown.The court, while dismissing the PIL, pulled up the litigant holding that no stranger that is a person who has no concern with the functioning and working of an organisation can maintain the PIL challenging the appointment made in that organisation.