Minister Cannot Invoke Writ Jurisdiction, Says Kerala HC

KOCHI:
The Kerala High Court has held that a minister, so long as he continues in the Cabinet, cannot invoke the writ jurisdiction to prevent the state and its officers from discharging executive functions pursuant to an order passed by another minister in the cabinet.
The court made this observation while dismissing a plea by Thomas Chandy, who resigned as state Transport minister on November 15. The resignation came in the wake of the division bench of Justice P N Raveendran and Justice Devan Ramachandran making stinging observations and rapping him for filing a plea against his own government on Tuesday.
Chandy, accused of land encroachment for his luxury resort, had challenged a report by the Alappuzha district collector on the alleged encroachments.
“In our considered opinion, the petitioner, who is a minister in the Council of Ministers of the state of Kerala, cannot, so long as he continues to be a minister, invoke the writ jurisdiction of this court to prevent the state of Kerala and its officers from discharging executive functions pursuant to an order passed by yet another minister in the council of ministers and thereby prevent action being taken,” the court said. The copy of the judgment was made available yesterday.
Justice Ramachandran in a separate observation held that the petitioner seems to be concerned more about the media and his political rivals than any legal prejudice that may be caused to him. The judge observed that Chandy’s act of filing a petition was an “affront on the well-honoured principles of Cabinet’s Collective Responsibility enshrined in Articles 75 and 164 of the Constitution of India.”
“What essentially presents in this writ petition is a challenge by one minister, against the action ordered by another minister of the same cabinet of ministers, against him,” the judge said.
The court held that the fundamental basis of parliamentary system of governance is Cabinet’s collective responsibility. “This doctrine began as a constitutional convention in governments following the Westminster system, that members of the cabinet must publicly support a government decision taken in the Cabinet, even if they do not privately agree with it’, the court said.
The corollary principle is that of individual ministerial responsibility that ministers are responsible for running of their departments and therefore, culpable for their department’s mistakes, it said. Cabinet confidentiality and cabinet solidarity are the two main features of the cabinet’s collective responsibility.
The court held that it cannot be refuted that ministers in a cabinet must act as one, or perish as one, because the principle that applies is that even if a no-confidence motion is carried against one of the ministers, the whole cabinet must resign.
“This is the immutable principle that is couched in the provisions of Article 164 of the Constitution which is intended to ensure accountability of the cabinet as a unit to the Legislative and to the people of the country,” it said. Article 164 (2) of the constitution states that the cabinet shall be collectively responsible to the Legislature, which means that a cabinet shall act cohesively as one unit, the court said.
Viewed from that angle it is certain that when a person acts as minister, he acts as a constituent of the cabinet and cannot act against the government’s interests, the court held. The position is not different if a minister approaches the court in his individual capacity to challenge a governmental action on the affirmation that he is not doing so as a minister, but in his individual capacity, it said.
In his petition, Chandy had said all sorts of “wild and baseless” allegations were being raised against his Water World Tourism Company, targeting him “with the set agenda orchestrated” by his political rivals, interested parties and the media. The district collector of Alappuzha also fell into their hands, he charged.
He contended that an ‘unfair’ inquiry was conducted by the district collector disregarding principle of natural justice after the “intervention” of the office of the revenue minister.