NEW DELHI: On a day a Supreme Court bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and B V Nagarathna asked the Gujarat government to file all records pertaining to the grant of remission of sentence to 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, another apex court bench said it is a settled principle that third parties, unconnected to a criminal case, can have no locus standi and cannot be allowed to intervene.
Justice J K Maheshwari,in his judgment related to a plea for transfer of 16 criminal cases pending in many courts, said, “It is a settled principle of law in crimi nal jurisprudence that intervention application filed by a third party should not be ordinarily be allowed in criminal cases unless the court is satisfied that on the grounds on which the person seeking intervention is directly or substantially related to the case and the question of law which may affect him adversely; or in the opinion of the court, joining interv enor in the case is expedientin public interest. ”
Maheshwari rejected the application for intervention in the transfer of 16 cases pleaded by the accused and said, “Nothing is averred in the application, how non-joining of the applicant may cause prejudice or affect the public interest. The applicant is neither a complainant in any of the cases of which transfer is being sought, nor he has any direct involvement or ground for his joining in public interest. The intervenor has no locus to intervene in the present petition. ”
Justice J K Maheshwari,in his judgment related to a plea for transfer of 16 criminal cases pending in many courts, said, “It is a settled principle of law in crimi nal jurisprudence that intervention application filed by a third party should not be ordinarily be allowed in criminal cases unless the court is satisfied that on the grounds on which the person seeking intervention is directly or substantially related to the case and the question of law which may affect him adversely; or in the opinion of the court, joining interv enor in the case is expedientin public interest. ”
Maheshwari rejected the application for intervention in the transfer of 16 cases pleaded by the accused and said, “Nothing is averred in the application, how non-joining of the applicant may cause prejudice or affect the public interest. The applicant is neither a complainant in any of the cases of which transfer is being sought, nor he has any direct involvement or ground for his joining in public interest. The intervenor has no locus to intervene in the present petition. ”