Kerala government moves Supreme Court after High Court stalls public survey
The Hindu
Kerala government appeals to the Supreme Court after High Court halts public survey program, citing intrusion into public policy.
The Kerala government moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday (February 18, 2026) against a State High Court decision to keep in abeyance the ‘Nava Keralam Citizen Response Programme’, a public outreach and development feedback initiative to obtain suggestions from the public on development and welfare measures.
The special leave petition filed by the State government, represented by advocate C.K. Sasi, submitted that the High Court intruded into matters of public policy not only to stall a programme approved by the council of Ministers of the State but further to set aside consequential financial sanction and budgetary proceedings.
“The High Court interfered with the government’s power to implement governance and development outreach programmes and seriously prejudiced the ability of the State to take policy decisions involving public expenditure and thus disturbed the constitutional balance between the executive and judiciary,” the petition submitted.
The Kerala government said the programme was envisaged as a time-bound statewide exercise to be conducted from January 2026 to February 2026 for collection of public opinion and suggestions regarding development and welfare schemes through a multi-level mechanism involving State, district and local-level coordination, as well as volunteers drawn from the Social Volunteer Force portal.
The State submitted that approximately ₹20 crores under the Budget head ‘Special PR Campaign’’ was set aside for the conduct of the programme. The financial sanction for the programme was done by the State’s Information and Public Relations Department in October last year and proceedings detailing the tentative budgetary allocation and expenditure components were issued subsequently in November 2025..
The High Court’s intervention was on the basis of a writ petition alleging that the programme violated the Rules of Business framed under Article 166(3) of the Constitution in as much as the subject matter of the programme relating to collection of development inputs and evaluation of welfare schemes fell within the domain of departments, and not the Information and Public Relations Department.
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