Question

The term "Public Interest Litigation (PIL)" was first used by:

• A. Prof. Abram Chayes
• B. Justice P.N. Bhagwati
• C. Prof. Upendra Baxi
• D. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer

Hint:

For Environment Protection Act questions, remember that Section 3 is the most important section because it grants wide powers to the Central Government for environmental protection. Questions are often asked by mentioning a specific subsection.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

The question is really testing whether you can tell apart the person who named a concept from the people who made it work in practice.

1. Prof. Abram Chayes: a US based scholar associated with American public law litigation theory, unconnected to the Indian phrase.
2. Justice P.N. Bhagwati: a judge who used PIL extensively on the bench, so he is tied to the practice of PIL rather than to naming it.
3. Prof. Upendra Baxi: the academic whose writing gave Indian law the expression "Public Interest Litigation" itself, making him the one who first used the term.
4. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer: another judge whose rulings expanded PIL's reach, again a practitioner of the doctrine rather than its namer.

Since two of the four choices are judges known for applying PIL and one is a foreign scholar writing on a different system, only Prof. Upendra Baxi remains as the person who first used the term.

The correct option is Prof. Upendra Baxi.

Answer 2

Looking at this chronologically helps separate the origin of the phrase from its later judicial growth.

1. Prof. Abram Chayes: wrote in the American context about litigation reshaping public institutions; his work parallels Indian PIL scholarship but is not its source.
2. Justice P.N. Bhagwati: came to prominence in Indian PIL through decisions delivered from the late 1970s onward, after the expression itself was already circulating in Indian legal writing.
3. Prof. Upendra Baxi: his academic writing on access to justice and social action litigation is where the phrase "Public Interest Litigation" first appears in Indian legal discourse, ahead of its widespread judicial use.
4. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer: like Justice Bhagwati, his landmark rulings came after the term had already entered legal vocabulary, and his contribution lies in expanding what PIL could do rather than naming it.

Placed on a timeline, the scholarly use of the term precedes its heavy judicial application, which points to the academic rather than either judge.

Hence, the correct answer is Prof. Upendra Baxi.