By P. Sreekumaran
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The UDF Government has suffered a serious legal setback with the Supreme Court liberating the Kerala Wakf Board from the supervision of a State official. The order clearly indicates that it can judicially intervene in case of “egregious” interference in a statutory body’s day-to-day management.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, passed the order while hearing the Board’s appeal against an interim order of the Kerala High Court on July 15. In its order, the High Court had directed that the State Wakf Board function under the ‘supervision” of the Joint/Additional Secretary of the State Government.
It may be mentioned that BJP leader Shone George had filed a writ petition stating that the Wakf board was not constituted according to the mandate of the Unified Wakf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development (UMEED) Act, 2025. The Act mandates the inclusion of two non-Muslim and a Shia member on the Board. The petitioner’s contention was that the Board at present has only nine members, without representation of non-Muslim communities and Shia community.
In its argument before the apex court, the Wakf Board contended that it cannot be compelled to function under the “command and control’” of a government official. “If the High Court direction has led to an egregious interference in the day-to-day management (of the Board), we would like to modify the last line of the order on the issue of supervision,” the court said.
The Bench was hearing the challenge raised by the State Wakf Board against the Kerala High Court’s interim order asking it not to exercise any major functions, incur capital expenditure or make policy decisions without express permission from the court. The judicial functions of the Board were also stopped. The petitioner’s advocates faulted the interim order on the ground that it was passed without hearing the Board or its members.
The Wakf controversy had been highlighted by the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) with the leader of the opposition Pinarayi Vijayan accusing the UDF Government of surrendering completely to the Sangh Parivar’s diktats. The Satheesan Government, he charged, had betrayed Kerala’s secular society and minorities by deciding to reconstitute the Wakf Board in accordance with the Union Government’s UMEED Act, 2025.
Pinarayi stated that the previous LDF Government had taken a firm stand against the inclusion of non-Muslim members on the Board. Accordingly, it had kept two posts in the 11-member body vacant. There was strong opposition to the amended Act which mandated the inclusion of two non-Muslim members, a move against which, Pinarayi said, several petitions were pending in the Supreme Court. The UDF Government has shown an unseemly hurry in agreeing to reconstitute the Wakf Board as per the amended Act despite the pending legal challenges, he pointed out.
The 2025 amendment was part of the Sangh Parivar agenda to include non-Muslims into a primarily Muslim religion-related institution. Incidentally, non-BJP Governments had resisted the move, which militates against the spirit of secularism. Only States where the BJP is in power have included non-Muslims on the Board, Pinarayi said. It is unfortunate that the Kerala Government, too is moving in the same direction, he observed.
The LoP also said that the LDF Government had presented a resolution in the State Assembly on October 14, 2024 against the amended Act. The UDF, which supported the resolution, however, changed its stand after it gained power in the State, he added.
The second jolt came when the Tata Group denied Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan’s claim that it had approached the State Government to invest Rs 10,000 crore in a ship-building yard in Kerala.
The State Government has been forced to issue a clarification in the wake of the Tata Group’s denial on the issue, which has come as a big embarrassment for the former. The Public Relations Department (PRD) clarified that the Chief Minister was only referring to the total Rs 10,000-crore investment potential that the Government aims at attracting to the State over the coming years under the maritime initiative Mission Samudra! It does not mean that a single investment agreement worth Rs 10,000 crore has been finalized with any one institution!
It may be mentioned that the Chief Minister had said, during the course of an interview, that the Tata Group was interested in investing Rs 10,000 crore in Kerala. He also referred to Tata’s investment plans, along with Singapore’s Changi Airport’s interest in investing in Kerala’s aviation sector during the Kerala Samudra Mission 2025 seminar held in Thiruvananthapuram on July 15.
Tata Group sources have, however, denied any such investment plans, and voiced surprise at the Chief Minister’s announcement on that score. Setting up a greenfield shipyard is not an easy task. The project needs at least 2,000 acres of land with a two-km waterfront. True, the union Government had given the green signal, last year, for a close to Rs 70,000 crore package to strengthen the country’s shipbuilding ecosystem. But Kerala did not figure in the list of States which have expressed interest in hosting shipbuilding clusters.
In an effort to save face, State Industries Minister P. K. Kunhalikutty released a photograph showing the CM, himself and representatives of the Tata Group having a discussion. But no formal announcement has been made by the Tatas on the shipyard project. Needless to say, the issue has been added to the long list of lies uttered by the Chief Minister ever since he took over as the Kerala CM. (IPA Service)
