The Kerala High Court on Tuesday quashed an order issued by the state government on October 10 launching the Nava Kerala Citizen Response Programme, The Hindu reported. The programme aimed to collect feedback from households on welfare measures through committees and volunteers.
A bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar VM said that the state government cannot use public funds and machinery for a large-scale household survey that resembles a political campaign ahead of the Assembly elections, Bar and Bench reported.
The Kerala Assembly elections are expected to be held in April.
The court said that the Rs 20 crore allocated for the survey from the public exchequer had been sanctioned without financial approval or budgetary clearance, the legal news outlet reported.
While the state government is not barred from undertaking welfare measures or conducting surveys related to schemes, any expenditure incurred “must have a financial sanction and pass muster with the financial rules”, the bench said.
The court added that it was not questioning the Cabinet’s wisdom in undertaking such a study. “But for executing and implementing such study, funds [outside] the financial rules are utilised and such irregularities if are brought on record, the court has a duty to declare such utilisation of funds as illegal,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying.
The bench also restrained the state government from proceeding with the survey.
The verdict came on two public interest litigation petitions filed by district panchayat member Mubas MH and Kerala Students Union president Aloshious Xavier, challenging the programme.
The petitions claimed that the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front government was misusing public funds to conduct the programme ahead of the Assembly elections, The Hindu reported.
They added that the proposed survey involved ward-level visits to homes, public spaces, Kudumbashree units and workplaces by volunteers to gather details and opinions about the state government’s welfare measures, Bar and Bench reported.
Kudumbashree units are community-based micro-enterprises and, more broadly, a three-tier network in Kerala, which was established in 1998 to eradicate poverty and empower women.
Such a door-to-door outreach exercise in the run-up to the Assembly elections amounted to a “state-sponsored political exercise” disguised as a development study, the petitioners alleged.
The petitions also stated that Rs 20 crore had been allocated from the public exchequer under a “special PR campaign” for implementing the programme, Bar and Bench reported.
They also alleged that the survey would result in the collection of extensive personal and household-level data without statutory backing or adequate safeguards, adding that this infringed upon citizens’ right to privacy.
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