It is easy in a society plagued with horrific ills to get car ried away with the notion that public interest litigation mat-(PIL) is a miraculous solution to these problems. It is true that public outrage did play a crucial role in the Supreme Court taking up .petitions on behalf of undertrials, children, women, mentally ill persons, pavement dwellers and so on, expanding the notion of t0he litigant's "standing", and even on its own initiative converting letters and press set-reports into petitions.