Kerala HC stops govt funds for implementing Nava Kerala Citizen Response programme
Kochi (PTI): The Kerala High Court on Tuesday said the government funds could not have been spent for the Nava Kerala Citizen Response Programme and set aside the order authorising Rs 20 crores for the initiative.
A bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar V M said the expenditure incurred for the implementation of such a programme is in violation of the rules of business.
The court's order came on two pleas, one of them by Kerala Students Union (KSU) state president Aloshious Xavier, seeking to quash the order launching the programme and restrain the government from "misusing public funds for personal and political gain of the ruling party or front".
The pleas had also claimed that the initiative was "a political campaign of the ruling party or political front, masquerading as a government programme" and that it had been launched with the singular objective of furthering their political interests ahead of the 2026 state assembly elections.
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Rahul Gandhi calls Great Nicobar Island project a ‘major threat’ to environment, tribal heritage
Sri Vijaypuram (Port Blair)/ Nicobar: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticised the Centre’s development initiative in Great Nicobar Island on Wednesday, On his maiden visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Gandhi alleged that the project will lad to large-scale environmental degradation and displacement of local communities.
The Rae Bareli MP, in a post on X after visiting the island, said the project would lead to extensive deforestation and adversely impact indigenous populations.
“So I will say it plainly, and I will keep saying it: what is being done in Great Nicobar is one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against this country’s natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime,” Gandhi added.
“The government calls what it is doing here a ‘Project’. What I have seen is not a project. It is millions of trees marked for the axe… It is communities that have been ignored while their homes have been snatched away,” Gandhi said.
Describing the initiative as “destruction dressed in development’s language”, he termed it one of the “biggest scams” against the country’s natural and tribal heritage and called for it to be stopped.
Gandhi also claimed that nearly 160 square kilometres of rainforest could be affected, raising concerns over ecological damage.
