Kerala - Kochi   

Hartal case adjourned

Kochi: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday adjourned by four weeks hearing on a contempt petition filed against the State government for not taking steps to ensure normality during hartal days.

The case was adjourned by a Bench comprising Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice A.K. Basheer.

The petition was filed by the Proper Channel, a Kochi-based non-governmental organisation.

The Advocate General submitted that the government issued specific directions from time to time to deal with situations arising out of hartals or general strikes.

It had never failed to provide adequate protection to its citizen, necessitating deployment of army or paramilitary forces to ensure that fundamental rights of citizens were protected during hartals.

In an affidavit, the government had said that it could not compel the citizens to abstain from such kind of strike or protest as long as those forms of agitations were not banned or declared as illegal. The State police had adequate strength to handle any such eventuality.

The deployment of paramilitary forces would only help to create a sense of fear in the minds of people and they would prefer to stay indoors.

The Bench posted for Wednesday the petition filed by the Adhinivesha Prathirodha Samithi against the government order exempting the 100 acres of land given to HMT from the land ceiling law. In an additional affidavit, the realtors who bought the land from HMT said that the petitioner was abusing the process of the court.

The petitioner had never challenged the government order which was issued in 2000.

In an affidavit, the Industries Department had justified the transfer of land in favour of the realtors. It said that no sanction was needed from the government before selling the land by HIMT to the realtors. No condition was prescribed before allowing HMT to retain 100 acres.

The Bench adjourned to June 30, the hearing on a contempt petition filed against three chief engineers of the Muvattupuzha Valley Irrigation Project. As directed by the court, the engineers appeared before it on Monday.

The petition was filed by P.T. Mathew, a government contractor in Kolenchery. According to him, the three chief engineers were members of the pre-qualification committee set up for constructing the proposed Madathanam project. The tender submitted by the petitioner was rejected. When a petition was filed, the court set aside that order. The court found the respondents had prima facie committed contempt of court.

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