Public Interest - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition public-interest

Definition :

Public interest, means an act beneficial to the general public. It means action necessarily taken for public purpose, Babu Ram Verma v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (1971) All LJ 653: (1971) Serv LR 649: (1971) 2 Lab LJ 235: (1971) Lab IC 1162 (All).

Means of concern or advantage to people as a whole, T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, (2002) 8 SCC 481.

Means retention of honest and efficient employees and weeding of inefficient and dishonest, Indira Saxena v. Municipal Council, 1995 Jab LJ 28.

Means those interests which concern the public at large, Law Lexicon, 2nd Edn., Reprint 2000, at p. 1557). See also T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, (2002) 8 SCC 481.

Refers to cases where the interests of public adminis-tration require the retirement of a government servant who with the passage of years has pre-maturely ceased to possess the standard of efficiency, competence and utility called for by the government service to which he belongs. No stigmas or implication of misbehaviour is intended, and punishment is not the objective, Gian Singh Mann v. High Court of Punjab & Haryana, AIR 1980 SC 1894: (1980) 4 SCC 266.

Public interest, takes within its fold several factors such as the maximum number of permits that may be issued on a route or in any area having regard to the needs and convenience of the travelling public, the non-availability of sufficient number of stage carriage services in other routes or areas which may be in need of running of additional services, the problems of law and order, availability of fuel, problems arising out of atmospheric pollution caused by a larger number of motor vehicles operating in any route or area, the condition of roads and bridges on the routes, uneconomic running of stage carriage services leading to elimination of small operators and employment of more capital than necessary in any sector leading to starvation of capital investment in other sectors etc., Rameshwar Prasad v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1983 SC 383: (1983) 2 SCC 195.

The public interest in relation to public administra-tion means that only honest and efficient persons are to be retained in service while the services of the dishonest or the corrupt or who are almost dead wood, are to be dispensed with, State of Gujarat v. Suryakant Chunilal Shah, (1999) 1 SCC 529; see also Union of India v. T.N. Sinha, AIR 1971 SC 40.