Judges of the Kerala High Court are loosening their purse strings to raise money for the distress relief funds of the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister to meet the COVID-19 challenges.
Earlier, the Kerala High Court had asked the State government not to deduct or defer the salaries of High Court Judges along with the government employees. Each judge of the Kerala court would voluntarily contribute at least ₹1 lakh each to the kitty and the amount would be divided into the two accounts. There are 36 judges in the Kerala High Court.
S. Manikumar, the Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court, launched the initiative by paying ₹1 lakh to the account of a cooperative society at the High Court. May 8 had been fixed as the deadline for raising the funds for the judges, judicial sources said.
Incidentally, a note issued by the Registrar General of the Kerala High Court early this week asking the government to refrain from deducting or deferring the salaries of the High Court Judges had made headlines.
In his letter, K. Haripal, the Registrar General, reminded the government that the High Court judges were Constitutional functionaries and their salaries and other allowances were fixed by Parliament. The salaries and other allowances of the judges could not be varied or deferred through an executive order of the State government, he observed.
The High Court decided to bring up the issue to the notice of the State government, as the salary details and proposal to defer the salary of judges for six days was found included in SPARK, the software used by the government for the disbursement of the salary of its employees, said judicial sources.
No one knew how the salary details of judges surfaced in the software. Senior government officials requested the Kerala High Court for a clarification when the issue of deferring the salary of Constitutional functionaries through an executive order was brought up in a note.
The note, which was on request from the government, was construed as the reluctance of the judges to contribute money for common good, sources said. Incidentally, the mobilisation of resources for supporting the governments had began among the judges much before the government decision to defer the salary of employees, sources said.
Meanwhile, the nearly 600 judicial officers of the lower judiciary also started resource mobilisation through their organisation, the Kerala Judicial Officers Association.
The association so far collected around ₹10 lakh and contributions were still coming in, sources said. Staff members of the Kerala courts would also chip in. A final call on the contribution would be taken after assessing the decision of the State to defer the salary of judicial officers. The cooperative society of the judicial officers had contributed another ₹5 lakh for the relief works, judicial officers said.
