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Kerala HC stays two policies as Lakshadweep row rages
A bench of chief justice S Manikumar and justice Shaji P Chaly ordered that the administration will not take any action on the two rules for now and told the Union government and the island administration to file a detailed affidavit in two weeks.
The Kerala high court on Tuesday stayed operation of two recent regulations issued by Lakshadweep administrator Praful Khoda Patel that ordered dairy farms to close and excluded meat products from the midday meals in the island’s schools.
A bench of chief justice S Manikumar and justice Shaji P Chaly ordered that the administration will not take any action on the two rules for now and told the Union government and the island administration to file a detailed affidavit in two weeks.
The high court’s reprieve on a petition filed by lawyer Ajmal Ahmad is the first for the island residents who have been protesting changes in rules ordered by the Lakshadweep administrator for more than a month.
Ajmal Ahmed argued that the new set of regulations were intended to change the food habits of the islanders and create the foundation for imposing the ban on cow slaughter. Besides, the order to shut the local dairy farms will end up promoting dairy products from Gujarat.
He also said the administration was planning to handover the midday meal scheme to a Bengaluru-based NGO called ‘Akshaya Patra’ to ensure that children only were given vegetarian means at school.
At one point, the court asked the island administration why it was tampering with the age-old food habits of people. But the administration insisted that the dairy farms run by the animal husbandry department were closed down as there were no proper cold storage facilities on the island and the farms were not financially viable.
Former Kerala finance minister Thomas Issac welcomed the interim stay.
“It is the first major setback to the autocratic administrator. His controversial other decisions will also be challenged in the court,” Thomas Issac said in a tweet.
Three more petitions are already pending before the high court against the rules pushed through by the administration after Praful Khoda Patel, a former minister from Gujarat who was appointed administrator of the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, was assigned additional charge of Lakshadweep too.
Residents of the archipelago have been protesting some of Patel’s decisions including the draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation (2021) that proposes to develop the islands as a major tourist destination, a proposal to notify the Goonda Act and a plan to ban cow slaughter. Patel’s critics in the islands argue that these steps will destroy the islands’ character and identity since 97% of the islands are covered by pristine forests and 95% of its Muslim population belong to the protected scheduled tribe category.
