Supreme Court stays Kerala HC order stalling Nava Kerala survey

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 24, 2026) stayed a State High Court decision keeping in abeyance the ‘Nava Kerala Citizen Response Programme’, described as a public outreach and development feedback initiative to obtain suggestions from the public on development and welfare measures.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said “there was nothing wrong in the government enquiring if its welfare programme has worked on the ground”.

The court, however, asked the State to provide a status report containing details of the expenditure of ₹20 crore set aside for the programme.

The court further issued notice to the petitioner, Mubas, on the appeal filed by the State of Kerala, represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate C.K. Sasi.

The special leave petition filed by the State government submitted that the High Court had intruded into matters of public policy to not only stall a programme approved by the Council of Ministers of the State but also 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 has submitted.

The State 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 and participation of volunteers drawn from the Social Volunteer Force portal.

The State submitted that approximately ₹20 crore under the budget head ‘Special PR Campaign’ was set aside for the conduct of the programme. The financial sanction for the programme was issued 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 based on a writ petition alleging that the programme violated the Rules of Business framed under Article 166(3) of the Constitution, inasmuch 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 petitioner 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 sanctions were issued 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 top court argued.