A ROMANCE WITH PUBLIC CAUSES
nnumerable grievances and problems of the people, of individuals, of localities, of a city, town or village, and sometimes of people in general, arise from time to time. These may be man-made or caused by nature or by governmental functioning. These call for redressal, removal of their cause, avoidance of their recurrence, and provision of compensation where necessitated. Numerous organisations, institutions and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) have got created for assuming responsibility of amelioration and removal of these grievances and problems. These organisations and institutions have been created by individuals and groups motivated by considerations of providing service to the people, for which they either charge some fees or are reimbursed and authorised by the society or Government or some individual organisation. Quite a number of NGOs have taken over responsibility by providing free service for taking up problems of the people for redressal, by seeking directions from the Supreme Court or a High Court or other institutions such as National Consumer Redressal Commission, District Consumer Forums, Lokayuktas and Upa-lokayukstas etc.
COMMON CAUSE is one such NGO which has been pursuing the objective of seeking redressal of common and collective problems and grievances of the people by seeking directions through the instrument of filing Public Interest Litigations (PILs) before the Supreme Court or Delhi High Court or by taking them to the National Commission for Consumer Disputes Redressal. COMMON CAUSE was established 25 years ago on the initiative taken by Director H. D. Shourie after retirement from the Government of India service and also after a stint in the United Nations. The organisation has filed about 100 PILs which are termed Writ Petitions in normal terminology; through these Writ Petitions it has been able to solve issues and problems which have benefited some millions of people. It has wide membership, for which only a token fee is paid, for enabling the organisation to send to the members quarterly Periodical communicating to them the account of its services and the PILs filed and pursued.
The name COMMON CAUSE was taken up by the Director from an organisation of same name in USA . A communication was first sent to the USA organisation to ascertain whether they had any objection to this name being given to the organisation proposed to be set up in India, making it clear that there will be no affiliation between the two organisations and that only the name, which is based on the dictionary words, is proposed to be utilised. COMMON CAUSE of USA was generous enough in sending reply that there was no objection to this name being utilised for the organisation proposed to be set up in India , and it also confirmed that there will be no affiliation between the two organisations. This has been the only exchange of letters between the two organisations.
The task taken up and continuously performed by our COMMON CAUSE in India has been to seek redressal of the common and collective problems of the people, ranging over practically every field, from matters of persons of retired government functionaries, to accidents on the roads, to steps required for checking corruption, to deal with Universities which are fake, to wrongful allotment of petrol pumps, to the curse of religious fanaticism, to requirement of curbing crime and violence, to huge pendency of cases in the Courts of the country, and numerous others.
We have also pursued with the concerned governmental authorities of the Centre and the States problems which come to notice and which need to be sorted out by them. Where the governmental authorities fail to solve the problems or give assurance of action taken, we utilize the preference of taking those matters to Courts for securing issue of directions to the concerned authorities. In this issue of our Periodical, being published on the eve of completing 25 years of our functioning, we have briefly outlined some of the cases taken to the Supreme Court of India and others. We have briefly put before the people samples and outlines of the Writ Petitions and other matters which have been taken up by COMMON CAUSE. Outcome of each of these Writ Petitions has not been possible to mention in this brief enumeration. Detailed information about these Writ Petitions, other matters and activities of the organization has been brought out in an excellently printed book of about 150 pages, entitled “ COMMON CAUSE – A ROMANCE WITH PUBLIC CAUSES “ which has been published by the Publisher M/s. ___________________________________
and is available in the bookshops at the address M/s.___________________
_____________________________________________________________ Members are requested to kindly secure a copy; it provides detailed information about the causes taken up by the organization during its existence of 25 years.
