The Kerala High Court on Tuesday rejected a plea by state Transport Minister Thomas Chandy, who had asked the bench to quash a fact-finding report that had confirmed wrongdoing by him in a land encroachment case, ANI reported.
The court asked how a minister could file a petition against the government, and suggested that resigning from the Cabinet was the ideal option for him, Mathrubhumi reported.
A company owned by Chandy allegedly violated the law to build a road through paddy fields to his resort in Alappuzha district. The fact-finding report by Alappuzha District Collector TV Anupama had confirmed the illegal encroachment. Chandy’s company allegedly violated the Kerala Land Conservancy Act and Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act while building the road, an earlier petition had alleged.
Last week, the High Court had pulled up the state government for its handling of the case, asking whether it was giving special treatment to the transport minister. If Chandy was an ordinary citizen, he would have been evicted using bulldozers, the bench had said.
Chandy is the only minister in the Cabinet who is part of the Nationalist Congress Party, an ally of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) party in the state. He said he built the resort 13 years ago, and it was not right to raise the allegations now.
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