MADURAI: A man has approached the Madurai bench of the Madras high court with a petition making an incredulous claim that he could produce Netaji Shubas Chandra Bose, if the Centre guarantees that it would not treat him as a war criminal or hand him over to the United Kingdom.

Interestingly, rather than questioning the claim that Netaji, who would be 117 years now, is still alive, a single judge of the court issued a notice to the Centre, and posted the matter to first week of January for further hearing. The petition has come at a time when the Madurai bench has seen a series of PILs which sought publicity at the expense of judiciary’s time.

In the first week this month, a PIL cited Australian cricketer Phil Hughes death on the field and wanted the court to restrain the Indian team from continuing its tour Down Under saying the bouncy pitches there could pose a threat to the Indian players’ lives.

Unmindful of the fact that since 1870 only four players have lost their lives on cricket field, the bench promptly issued notices to the Centre and the BCCI. The matter is pending.

In the second week of this month, when superstar Rajinikanth’s ‘Lingaa’ was about to release, a litigation over the story and script of the film played out in the court. A division bench held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case and no reason to interfere with a single judge order asking the claimants to approach an appropriate civil court. But, quite controversially, it directed the producer to deposit Rs 10 crore, including Rs 3 crore on the very day itself, prior to the release of the film.

Justice M Venugopal before whom the petition on Netaji came up for hearing, on Monday directed the government to file a counter-affidavit, brushing aside the plea for the matter to be heard by the division bench.

“Bose was born in January 1897, and if he is alive today he will be 117 years old. Is this claim believable? While issuing notice to the government, courts must consider very basic issues into account,” said a central law officer unwilling to go on record. “If I seek instruction from officers in Delhi, they will laugh at me.”

“Assuming this petitioner has some information relating to Bose, why should he come to court? What do courts have to do with such matters? Courts are not panacea for all ills in the world. Why did the court not ask this question when the claim was made before it? Merely because Madurai bench is in their backyard, litigants cannot be allowed to troop in with incredible claims,” said a judicial officer.

“A few quality moments of courts usually mean end of litigations pending for years. Such precious time should not be wasted on absurd issues. Courts are encouraged to impose costs to deter filing of such PILs,” he said.

For the record, Tamil Nadu state organizer of Bharatiya Subash Sena A Alagu Meena , 35, of Aruppukottai in Virudhunagar district filed an affidavit stating that he could produce Bose in court. He filed it as a supporting affidavit to a pending PIL which seeks a direction to the Centre to publish all the files relating to the death/disappearance of Bose.

