Irked at an unusual request from a petitioner seeking a direction to the Centre to make Kerala's Tirur a stop of Thiruvananthapuram- Kasaragod Vande Bharat Express, the Supreme Court on Monday pulled him up, saying that he has turned the apex court into a post office.
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A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and Manoj Misra dismissed the plea filed by a lawyer P T Sheejish against an order of the Kerala High Court dismissing his PIL on the issue.
At the very outset, CJI Chandrachud remarked, "You want us to decide where the Vande Bharat train will stop? Should we schedule a Delhi-Mumbai Rajdhani stop next? This is a policy matter, go to the authorities, Dismissed."
The petitioner also argued that the top court should at least ask the authorities to consider the request but the bench refused to permit the plea to be filed as a representation to the Railways authorities, saying this would mean that "we saw some merits in your submissions".
Sheejish had placed reliance on the the population of Tirur and Shornur districts to buttress the argument that Tirur is a major district with dense population and the denial of the railway stop there would amount to absolute ignorance and hindrance of effective transport facilities to the entire people of the district.
{{/usCountry}}Sheejish had placed reliance on the the population of Tirur and Shornur districts to buttress the argument that Tirur is a major district with dense population and the denial of the railway stop there would amount to absolute ignorance and hindrance of effective transport facilities to the entire people of the district.
{{/usCountry}}He argued that it would be difficult for the people from Malappuram to travel Shornur (the stoppage of train), which is around 56km away from Tirur.
A division bench of the Kerala High Court, on April 28, had dismissed the plea, stating that there was no public interest found in the petition.
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Tirur is a major railway station in Malappuram district of Kerala on the Shoranur-Mangalore section of Southern Railways. Kerala's first Vande Bharat Express was flagged off in April from Thiruvananthapuram Railway Station and connects the state capital with the northernmost district of Kasaragod.
It covers 11 districts namely Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasargod in its 586 km long journey.
(With inputs from agencies)