New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday resented the increasing tendency of litigants to treat it as "a mere police station" and rush to it for its direction for lodging "criminal cases against all and sundry".

"How can such a petition be filed? We are not a police station," said a bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathashivam, dismissing a petition for a direction to the Maharashtra government to prosecute Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray for allegedly spreading sectarian hatred against north Indians in general and Biharis in particular in the state.

The petition had been filed by a civil rights group Yuva Shakti, which sought the apex court's direction to the state government to prosecute Thackeray under a stringent Maharashtra law to deal with gangsters and hardcore criminals.

The counsel for petitioner submitted to the court that the violence triggered by the MNS activists under Thackeray's leadership against north Indians in the state violated the victims' Fundamental Rights to settle anywhere in the country and seek employment.

But least impressed by the argument, the bench remarked that the petitioner was not a victim and had no right to seek registration of a criminal case.

"You are not an aggrieved party. Only an aggrieved party can file a petition for initiation of a criminal procedure," the bench said, dismissing the petition.

 

Source : ians