Let People Know About Changes In Law, Give Due Publicity: Kerala HC Tells Govt [Read Judgment]

Issuance of Gazette notification is of no avail unless people know of it, the court said.

How many of us read the Gazette publications by the government to know changes in law? Most do not.

Perhaps by identifying the said reality, the Kerala High Court has observed that issuance of Gazette notification is of no avail and due publicity is required to be given in various newspapers of wide circulation in the state, so that people know of the changes in law.

A division bench of Chief Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh and Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan were considering a submission by the government that an Ordinance issued recently bringing about amendments to the Kerala Conservation of Paddy and Wet Land Rules, 2008, provides opportunity to the public to raise objections with regard to entries included in the data bank.

The government told the court that these new rules would go a long way in helping the citizens to correct the mistakes or get the mistakes corrected.

Recording the submission, the bench observed: “We would like to impress upon the Government that issuance of Gazette notification is of no avail unless people know of it. The effective manner for that would be that the substance of the notification is published and given due publicity in various newspapers of wide circulation in the State. If this has not already been done, we expect the Government to do so immediately.”