Kerala government moves Supreme Court after High Court stalls public survey

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..

Petitioners allege fund misuse

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.

The writ petitioners had contended that the allocation of ₹20 crore amounted to diversion or misuse of public funds and required legislative sanction under Articles 202 to 205 of the Constitution.

The State had countered that the programme had received Cabinet approval and that administrative and financial sanction had been granted along with detailed budgetary proceedings.

It had argued that the Information and Public Relations Department was competent to implement the programme. “The High Court failed to appreciate that the Rules of Business are internal executive instructions intended for convenient transaction of governmental business and are directory in nature. Non-compliance with such internal allocation of business does not ipso facto render executive action void,” the appeal in the apex court argued.

The High Court had failed to appreciate that the provisions of the Kerala Budget Manual and other internal fiscal norms were executive guidelines without statutory force, and cannot be treated as mandatory provisions whose alleged violation would invalidate governmental action, the petition said.

It said that internal fiscal instructions cannot be elevated to the status of enforceable law by the court in judicial review.