In February 2021, a single-judge Bench of the Karnataka High Court dismissed another petition by the same NGO with costs of ₹10 lakh for filing multiple petitions seeking to register a case against Premji and others.
The Bench of Justice PS Dinesh Kumar noted that multiple petitions were moved before the High Court seeking criminal action against the Wipro Chairman, and that even after those petitions were dismissed, the NGO filed a fresh writ petition with similar set of allegations.
While rejecting the writ petition, the Court noted:
“…there remains no doubt that petitioner is indulging in forum shopping on the very same cause of action. As held in Udyami this amounts to criminal contempt as the core issue in all these writ petitions is one and the same… In the result, this writ petition is not only devoid of merits, but an absolute abuse of process of law. Though petitioner was forewarned, he chose to argue this writ petition as a stand-alone petition wasting the valuable time of this Court to deal with such frivolous cases. Therefore, imposition of punitive cost is necessary.”
Source: Barandbench
