Kerala High Court plea seeks to dismiss Pinarayi Vijayan as Chief Minister

KOCHI: A writ petition has been filed in the Kerala High Court seeking to issue a writ of quo-warran to declaring that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is not entitled to hold the post of Chief Minister as he has lost the constitutional right to hold the office in the light of loss of collective responsibility of the Cabinet. The petition pointed out that the situation has arisen due to the conduct of Thomas Chandy in approaching the High Court challenging an action of a subordinate administrative authority while being a minister. It compounded thereafter through the abstention of four ministers from the meeting of the council of ministers on November 15 after giving an intimation to this effect in writing.

The said fact was declared in open by a minister in the cabinet. The Chief Minister is on record that the abstaining of four ministers is an unprecedented incident. Both resulted in forfeiting the concept of collective responsibility and disentitles Mr Vijayan from holding the office of Chief Minister as he has lost his constitutional status to continue in office and that he is a usurper of power through the said event, the petition contended.

The petitioner R.S. Sasikumar, former Syndicate member of Kerala and Cochin Universities, pointed out that a Division Bench of the High Court had held that the act of Mr Chandy approaching the court with the petition had resulted in loss of accountability of the Cabinet as a unit since the Ministers in the cabinet must act as one or perish as one, because the principle that applies is that even if a non-confidence motion is carried out against one of the Mintsters the whole Cabinet must resign.