Kozhikode: The High Court of Kerala on Thursday stayed the Kozhikode Municipal Corporation's move to pass a resolution against the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
Passing the interim order, Justice N Nagaresh said, "I am prima facie convinced that a resolution on Uniform Civil Code cannot be moved in the Corporation Council".
The order was passed on a petition filed by BJP councillor Navya Haridas. She said she moved the court because the UCC did not come within the administrative powers of the corporation.
According to Rule 18(4)(a) of the Kerala Municipality (Procedure for Meeting of Council) Rules, 1995, a municipality or corporation can admit resolutions on subjects that come within the administrative power of the municipality, said the councillor from Karapparamb ward.
CPM councillor T Muraleedharan from Edakkad ward had proposed to move the resolution against the UCC on Tuesday, July 19.
The resolution read: A democratic country such as India has diverse laws and customs, and the Union Government should back off from implementing an anti-people Uniform Civil Code which will create communal polarisation in society and trigger long-standing problems.
The corporation secretary admitted the proposed resolution and included it as part of the agenda to be taken up for the council meeting on July 21.
Navya Haridas said she wrote to the corporation secretary and mayor Beena Philip on July 19 asking them to remove the proposed resolution against Uniform Civil Code from the agenda. "They did not even reply to my letters. In Kozhikode Corporation, the ruling Left front has no respect for the opposition. So we had to move the High Court," she said.
The proposed resolution is a hypothetical argument that the implementation of the UCC would create communal polarisation among people, said Navya's counsel Advocate K Sajith Kumar.
As per Rule 18(4)(d), a resolution shall not contain the argument, hypothetical inferences, ironical expressions or defamatory statements, he said.
The 75-member Kozhikode Municipal Corporation has only seven BJP members, and the resolution would have been passed with a thumping majority.
In September 2022, the Kozhikode Corporation's CPM councillor V K Mohan Das proposed to introduce a resolution against the disbanding of the Planning Commission and the policies of NITI Aayog, the Union government's think-tank that replaced the Planning Board. But the BJP got the move stayed by the High Court.
Similarly, BJP successfully moved the High Court to block Kasaragod District Panchayat's ove to pass a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
