Gandhinagar

Speaking at releasing regulations of India’s first International Finance Services Center in Gandhinagar, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today put question mark on Public Interest Litigations filed against various development projects in India, the persons behind such petitions and their funding source.

Shri Jaitley in his speech said, “when somebody saw a great idea being implemented, his best weapon to stop it is a Public Interest Litigation.”

“So I am given to understand that, the walk through fire, GIFT(Gujarat International Finance Tech) city had to walk through the entire test of a Public Interest Litigations also.”

“At times I wonder since this debate is on that it should not be a bad idea if it is made mandatory that everybody who files such PIL which are intended to stop developmental activity in India, also disclose as a part of mandatory disclosure what their funding sources are.”

“If in order to contest an election, I have to disclose my entire assets, all elected MLAs have to disclose their assets, our civil servants have to disclose them, and as we have RTI available against all of them, so these conscious keeper crusaders should be little more transparent than us.”

“And therefore the world must know as to from where the funds for such litigation are coming or whether in order to stop development, these are the litigations which may even be inspired by funding sources itself. It will only add to the transparency and fairness of our system.”

– DeshGujarat