The Delhi High Court on Wednesday expressed reservations about the “trend” of filing public interest litigations (PILs) based only on news reports, without doing “independent research or homework”.

A Bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela made the observation while dismissing a PIL seeking to regulate external recruitment companies or agents for public sector banks and allied institutions.

The PIL also sought an independent investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India or the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged malpractices in recruitment for a publicly listed company.

While hearing the plea, the court questioned the evidentiary value of newspaper reports, saying it cannot take cognisance of uncorroborated news reports.

“Do your research. What catches your imagination after reading the newspaper?” the court said to the petitioner and asked why he had not approached SEBI or the Reserve Bank of India.

It also suggested to the petitioner not to take the PIL law “so lightly”.

“A trend has been going on of gathering one or two information, mostly newspaper reports, and filing PILs and asking courts or other parties to produce evidence. You have to do your own homework,” the court said.