Kerala High Court rebukes MLA Aryadan Shouketh for seeking to withdraw his PIL on tribal welfare after winning Nilambur bypoll. Court says he must now act from his new position to help the tribal communities.
Kochi: Today, on July 28, the Kerala High Court recently came down strongly on newly elected MLA Aryadan Shouketh after he tried to withdraw a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that he himself had filed to help tribal communities in his own constituency, Nilambur.
The PIL was filed by Shouketh and co-petitioner Sudha Vanimpuzha to highlight the poor living conditions of tribal families living deep inside forests in Nilambur Taluk.
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These families, as per the petition, live in unsafe sheds made of plastic sheets and are cut off from the mainland because two important bridges in the region were destroyed in the floods of 2018 and 2019.
The petitioners had requested the Court to direct the Kerala Legal Services Authority (KELSA) to act as a Tribal Monitoring Committee and file a report about the situation in the tribal colonies of Pothugal Grama Panchayat, Vazhikadavu Grama Panchayat, and Karulai Grama Panchayat.
However, after Aryadan Shouketh won the Nilambur by-election and became an MLA last month, he made a surprising move—he filed a request to withdraw the same PIL.
The Kerala High Court, particularly the Division Bench of Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Basant Balaji, was clearly not happy with this.
The Bench reminded Shouketh that being elected as an MLA puts him in a stronger position to actually bring about the changes he had asked for in court. The judges made sharp oral remarks questioning his intention.
Chief Justice Jamdar said,
“You are an MLA, now you want to withdraw? What is this? You are now in a better position as an elected representative of this area. You take up this task. This must be your campaign manifesto. Please don’t ask us to permit withdrawal. Don’t force us to make further observations. We were surprised that you want to withdraw the petition.”
Instead of allowing him to take back the PIL, the Court decided to dispose of it while noting its expectation that Shouketh would take the issue forward in his new role as a lawmaker.
The Court recorded in its order,
“We are surprised at this course of action adopted by the petitioner no.1. (Shouketh). Now that he has been elected as MLA he would be in a better position to address the issue he himself has raised in the petition. Therefore, we are of the opinion that this task should be taken forward by the petitioner no.1 in his new capacity as he has been elected as a representative of the people of this area and he should look into it from the new position he has assumed. With these observations and expecting further action from petitioner no.1 we dispose of this petition.”
This matter raises important legal and moral questions about the responsibilities of elected representatives, especially when they have themselves highlighted social issues through the judicial process.
While the Court did not allow the withdrawal of the PIL, it placed a clear moral and public duty on Shouketh to act from his more powerful position as MLA. His own petition has now become a kind of commitment, and the Court expects him to fulfill it.
Case Title:
Aryadan Shouketh & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.
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