His credibility at stake, Harish Salve says, he ‘threw back’ NGO’s drug brief

This realisation, Salve admits, came when when one of the targeted parties, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon, called him to point out that the litigation had been launched just around the time her company was going public.

Despite his long association with the PIL movement, Salve said that it was this disclosure about Adar Destitute and Old Age Home that confirmed a ‘‘suspicion’’ he already had when the law firm of E C Aggrawala offered him a fee for appearing in it.

‘‘PIL and fee don’t go together. I take up a PIL only for the cause. So if somebody was still offering me money, I instinctively felt that all was not well with the petition,’’ Salve told The Indian Express tonight.

The doubt in his mind restrained him from pressing for any interim order when he first mentioned the matter in February before a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India V N Khare and sought an early listing of the case.

But when the case was actually listed for hearing before a bench headed by Justice Rajendra Babu, Salve did not appear because Shaw had by then confirmed his suspicion about the bona fides of the PIL. Even so, Salve asked the petitioner and the advocate on record if they knew that the PIL clashed with Biocon’s initial public offering (IPO), they reacted with ‘‘a knowing smile’’ which prompted him to throw the file back at them.

Salve got angry because of the ‘‘high credibility’’ he commanded in PIL cases. ‘‘When I appear in private cases, the court may dismiss my argument in 30 seconds,’’ he said. ‘‘But when I appear in PIL cases, the judges always hear me out because they would regard me as part of the solution to a public problem.’’

E C Aggrawala, when contacted, disclaimed any responsibility as an advocate on record to exercise due diligence in the matter. ‘‘It’s not our job to go into the antecedents of clients,’’ Aggrawala said, in reaction to Salve’s allegation against the PIL filed by his firm.

The Indian Express today reported how the NGO’s address mentioned in the Supreme Court affidavit isn’t a valid one and how several ‘‘activists’’ involved with it are now washing their hands of the PIL.

The PIL alleges that Biocon and Shantha Biotech were allowed by the Government to go ahead with trials of their diabetes and cancer drugs violating norms. The Government, however, has given both companies an all-clear saying that the lapse, if any, was purely ‘‘procedural’’ because of some confusing guidelines.