Kerala High Court Halts 'Nava Keralam' Programme, Citing Financial Rule Violations

In a setback for the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led government, the Kerala High Court Tuesday directed the state government to stop the conduct of its citizen response initiative ‘Nava Keralam programme’ . The Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar VM acted on public interest litigations filed by KSU, the student wing of the Congress. The state government had launched the programme early last month to gather people’s feedback on development and welfare schemes, understand local needs, and collect public opinion. According to the state government, the programme is an essential welfare study intended to augment and facilitate development measures already undertaken. The petitioners alleged that the programme, for which the government had set apart Rs 20 crore, was a political campaign tailored to help the ruling party ahead of the 2026 Legislative Assembly elections. They said the scheme was being implemented via a portal created for disaster management and amounted to misuse of state machinery for political purposes. The court in its order said “the expenditure incurred in implementation of such [a] programme is in violation of the rules of business. The said amount neither could have been allocated nor utilised under the special PR campaign head being not permitted under the rules of business”. The court also took note of a letter issued by CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan last year asking party cadres to register as volunteers for the programme and coordinate its implementation, “raising concerns that the programme was being used as a political campaign for the ruling party.” “We are not questioning the wisdom of the Cabinet to undertake such study, but for executing and implementing such study, funds de hors 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,” the court said.