It Is The Duty Of Citizens To Respect The Prime Minister Of India : Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday while rejecting a plea seeking removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photograph from Covid-19 vaccination certificates observed that citizens are duty-bound to respect the Prime Minister.

While dismissing the petition with a hefty cost of one lakh rupees, Justice P.V Kunhikrishnan remarked: 

"The people elect the eligible persons among them and send them to the Parliament and the majority party will select their leader and he will be our Honourable Prime Minister for five years. Till the next general election, he will be the Prime Minister of India...Therefore, according to me, it is the duty of the citizens to respect the Prime Minister of India, and of course, they can differ on the policies of the Government and even the political stand of the Prime Minister.

The Court was adjudicating upon a plea filed by a senior citizen and an RTI activist who was aggrieved by his vaccination certificate bearing the photograph of the Prime Minister.

Accordingly, the petitioner moved the Court and sought a declaration that the photograph of the Prime Minister on his COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate is a violation of his fundamental rights.

The petitioner had argued that the photograph of the Prime Minister in his vaccination certificate is an intrusion to his privacy. To this, the Court responded: 

"What a fantastic argument! Is he not living in this country? The Prime Minister of India is not a person who entered the parliament house by breaking the roof of the parliament building. He came to power because of the mandate of the people. The Indian democracy is being praised by the world. The Prime Minister is elected  because he has got people's mandate." 

The bench further added that once the election is over and the majority of people gave a mandate to a political party which leads to the election of Prime Minister, he is not the leader of that political party but a leader of the country.

"In the next general election, they can make use of it and remove him with people's mandate. But once a Prime Minister is elected as per the constitution, he is the Hon'ble Prime Minister of our country and that post should be the pride of every citizen, whether the Prime Minister is "X" or "Y""

Finding no merit in his contentions, the Court ruled that the petitioner may be influenced by the widespread notion that all political leaders are corrupt:

"There is a general trend to a section of the citizens of our country that the political leaders are all corrupt people and they cannot be believed. I think, from this concept, these types of arguments are coming into the mind of the petitioner. But can anyone generalise like that? What is wrong with politicians? Since there is a small percentage of politicians are having a bad history, the entire politicians need not be ignored."  

The Bench further pointed out that there are excellent political leaders who have made great initiatives for the welfare of the country, calling them 'builders of our nation with innovative ideas'.

As such, the writ petition was dismissed imposing a cost of Rs.1,00,000 (Rupees One Lakh only) to be paid by the petitioner to the Kerala State Legal Services Authority within six weeks.

Case Title: Peter Myaliparampil v. Union of India & Anr.

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