KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has deplored that it has become commonplace to file petitions before the high court without giving any thought to the merits, thereby placing a burden on the public exchequer.

The SHC also noted that genuine litigants were being deprived of their rights to have their cases heard due to meritless and frivolous litigation, which was also overburden-ing the judicial system.

A two-judge bench of the SHC, headed by Justice Muhammad Hasan Akber, further said that such practice has repeatedly been deprecated by the Supreme Court (SC) and held that frivolous litigation not only clogs judicial dockets but also drains public resources and delays justice for genuine litigants.

The SHC made these observations while turning down 18 petitions filed by an individual, allegedly under the guise of public interest, and imposing a fine of Rs10,000 per petition upon the petitioner.

The bench, in its order, noted that it was passing a common order in these petitions since all were related to the same petitioner and were taken up in a collective cluster.

It also said that petitioner Zulfiqar Ali Shah has filed such petitions allegedly under the guise of public interest and alleged violations of human rights, while he had previously also invoked the writ jurisdiction of the SHC by filing 13 similar-themed petitions, which were dismissed by the court.

It further observed that a simple perusal of the petitions clearly demonstrated that the petitioner had failed to provide any cogent grounds or bona fide reasoning for the invocation of the constitutional jurisdiction of the SHC, and that all these petitions were meritless and without any legal justification.

Moreover, the subject matter of some of the petitions was identical to that of previous petitions filed by the petitioner, which were already dismissed by the court earlier this year, it added.

The bench said, `It appears clear that the petitioner has filed the instant constitutional petitions without any proper legal contentions; and has wasted significant public time and resources by filing such a vast amount of petitions, without any regard for the costs incurred for processing matters through the court structure. This has also resulted in genuine litigants beingdeprived of their rights to a hearing of their cases, since these frivolous petitions have clogged part of the court docket`.

It also noted that the petitioner was a habitual litigant, who appeared to have a strong tendency to file meritless petitions before the SHC, and the petitioner`s frivolousness and carelessness in the instant matters were also reflected by his contemptuous attitude when in court; he remained unable to answer any single question relating to the merits or maintainability of any of theinstantpetitions.

He was further unable to furnish any response as to why, in some instances, multiple petitions were filed on the same subject matter, and he also had not disclosed the previous petitions on some of the same subject matters that were dismissed by the court, the bench said and added that even a simple perusal of memos of petitions showed the submissions to be vague and baseless.

`Unfortunately, it has become commonplace to file petitions before this court with-out giving any thought of the merits, the burden for which remains on the public exchequer, funding the process, as well as at the cost of genuine litigants whose cases are unable to be heard due to overburden of the court system`, it added.

Referring to some judgements of the SC, the bench in its order further observed that this practice has repeatedly been deprecated by the apex court and had asked the courts to impose costs whenever it was required, stem frivolous litigation and stop the abuse of the process of the court in perpetuating wrongdoing.

It said the SC had also held that frivolous litigation not only clogs judicial dockets but also drains public resources and delays justice for genuine litigants.

The bench said that it was not only bound by the dictum of the SC, but was also in complete agreement with such sentiments and, therefore, dismissed all these petitions for being meritless and imposed a fine of Rs10,000 per petition upon the petitioner.