The Kerala high court recently ordered the Lakshadweep administration to withdraw notifications in relation to the Lakshadweep Panchayat Regulations, 2022 (LPR 2022), saying they were ultra vires relevant provisions of the Constitution and the LPR 2022. The notification declaring the panchayat area, notification for the reserved seats for Scheduled Tribes and women, and the election rules are to be withdrawn.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had approved the new panchayat regulations in 2022. This was one of the four controversial decisions taken after Praful Patel took charge as the administrator, and sent to the MHA for approval. The other three were: the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA or Gunda Act), a draconian law akin to Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, using which the administrator can imprison a person for up to one year without trial; the Animal Preservation Regulation (or anti-cow slaughter law), which prohibits the slaughter of bovine animals in the archipelago; and Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation, which bestows arbitrary powers to the administrator to acquire land. All these regulations, except the LPR 2022, are still pending with the ministry.
The new panchayat regulations replaced the Lakshadweep Panchayat Regulations, 1994. The old regulations followed the territorial boundaries of each island. The two-tier system under the LPR 1994 comprises 10 Village Dweep Panchayats (each island is considered as a village) for 10 inhabited islands. District panchayat members were selected from each island in proportion to the population of the island. The district panchayat members and chairpersons of each VDP and the Member of Parliament make up the district panchayat, headed by the chief councillor who is directly elected from the members of the district panchayat. As far as the representation is concerned, this model is very simple and most practical one. The LPR 1994 bestows the administrator with the power to call the territorial area of each island as a panchayat area. Hence no arbitrary proclamation of a panchayat area was possible; the area to be declared a panchayat is very clearly mentioned in the LPR 1994.
The LPR 2022 has brought a drastic change by giving the administrator power to constitute panchayat areas as s/he sees fit. The administrator can therefore use a notification to declare a panchayat area without considering the territorial sensitivities of the islands. This was reflected in the declaration of new panchayat area. Under the LPR, 1994, Agathi Island, which has a population of 7,521 as per the 2011 Census, was a Village Dweep Panchayat headed by a chairperson. The name of the panchayat was also Agathi. But in the notification issued by the Lakshadweep administration under LPR, 2022, there are two panchayat areas in Agathi: Lal Bahahdur Shastri Gram Panchayat and Bhagath Singh Gram Panchayat. In effect, the number of panchayat areas increased from 10 to 18 under the new rules.
The names of panchayats ignore local sentiments. Patel extended the BJP’s name-changing politics to the archipelago. In 2022, the name of the legendary parliamentarian late P.M. Sayeed was dropped from a Calicut University Centre when the centre’s affiliation was moved to Pondicherry University. Recently, the name of the first female teacher in Lakshadweep was dropped from the Junior Basic School Kalpeni; it is now named after Subash Chandra Bose. The name of late Dr K.K. Mohammed Koya, a social activist and former chief councillor of Lakshadweep, has been dropped from the Government Senior Secondary School Kalpeni; now it is named after Sardar Vallabhai Patel.
Notifications renaming two schools after Sardar Patel and Subhash Chandra Bose.
This politics of name changing continues under the LEP, 2022 – the names of the islands are ignored and replaced with the names of freedom fighters. Two of these name changes have been challenged in the high court and the case is pending.
Considering the small population in the islands, this increase in the number of panchayats will narrow down vote differences and pave the way for smaller parties in Lakshadweep like the BJP to win the elections. For example in the case of Agathi, the population of one panchayat will reduce to less than 4,000. Arafa Mirage, national president of the Nationalist Youth Congress, said that if the government want to increase the representation, as they have argued in the court, they can hike the number of wards. There is no logic in increasing the number of panchayaths. The court found the notification on new panchayat areas ultra vires the Constitution as the panchayat areas are not declared as per the Census data. The court also found other procedural lapses in the notifications.
This is one of the many verdicts against the administration after Patel took charge as administrator of the UT in December 2020.
The administrator commands a considerable amount of arbitrary power in the Union Territories, but Patel’s impatient dictatorial mindset has placed him in a complicated legal labyrinth.
As of now, some of the tenders issued by the Lakshadweep administration stand cancelled by an order issued by Amit Satija, secretary finance of the UT, to all department heads. In that order, Satiija says “Finance department has received a note for follow up action from the Advisor to the Hon. Administrator forwarding therewith the letter of MHA where in UTL Administration has been advised to cancel a tender floated for construction since substantive violations of CPWD manual such as estimate prepared without adding cost index, floating of NIT before AA & ES and TS etc were noticed by the technical cell of IFD (h).” The letter then instructs the heads of all departments to adhere to norms and mandates in the future.
Patel declares big projects, floats tenders and appoints consultants with scant regard for the law. For instance, he announced a project to expand the road at Kavaratti worth Rs 1,200 crore, but the grants allocated per year to Lakshadweep are generally between Rs 1,300 and 1,400 crore. This allocation is sanctioned by parliament according to the well-defined demands submitted by the administration.
P.P. Mohammed Faizal, Member of Parliament from Lakshadweep, wrote a letter to the home secretary, Ajay Kumar Bhalla, seeking the MHA’s view on the projects announced by the Lakshadweep administration. The letter says, “It is seen that many developmental projects have been announced in Lakshadweep and number of consultancies are given work orders for DPR preparation. Archipelago has a plethora of new projects in papers and many consultancies are regularly visiting the islands in the name of project preparation. All these projects are budgeted to crores and the consultation fee itself amounts to huge money. When the administration goes with huge plans, as the people representative of Lakshadweep in Loksabha I would like to know whether home ministry has given administrative as well as technical sanctions to all these multi crore projects.” He also shared the concerns of the people who may be at risk due to these projects.
Faizal wanted to appraise MHA that many projects are being announced in Lakshadweep without the proper concurrence of the MHA. The order cancelling tenders is considered to be a response to the complaint filed by Faizal. But where this leave the consultant fees to be paid to companies? From which head will the amount be allocated? Funds allocated for routine expenditure and for the welfare of the people will likely be redirected, bypassing many norms, to pay for the companies as many of the companies are already on the verge of finishing their work.
The Wire has previously reported on the high travel expenses of Patel, without taking into account the travel expenses allotted to the administrator per year.
These cases are just examples. The Lakshadweep administration has opened a Pandora’s box of litigations since Patel took charge. From the controversial demolition of fishermen’s sheds, rights to land in the uninhabited island Bangaram, issue of ownership of Pandaram land, the salary of safai karamcharis, etc. to the announcement of big projects – they have all initiated a large number of complex, long-lasting cases. Patel also has two cases in the Supreme Court: a midday meal case and a case on the conviction of MP Faizal. The administration is now engaged in never-ending litigations against the people of Lakshadweep and their representative. In the meanwhile, welfare of the people and the islands lie ignored.
Salahuddin is a researcher based in Lakshadweep.