‘Why are you ashamed of our Prime Minister?’, Kerala HC asks petitioner challenging photo of PM Modi on COVID vaccine certificates

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Monday (December 13) reprimanded a petitioner, challenging the photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi affixed on the COVID-19 vaccination certificates, for wasting judicial time, asking, "why are you ashamed of our Prime Minister?" 

The bench said that the petitioner is wasting judicial time, and if it doesn't find any merit in the petitioner's contentions, then the court will dispose of the petition. The plea was submitted by an RTI activist Peter Myaliparampil. 

Single Bench of PV Kunhikrishnan further said, "he is our Prime Minister, not the Prime Minister of any other country. He came to power through our mandate. Merely because you have political differences, you cannot challenge this. Why are you ashamed of our Prime Minister? 100 crore people don't seem to have an issue with this so why do you? Everyone has different political opinions. You are wasting judicial time." 

By pointing out that the petitioner was the state-level master coach of the Jawaharlal Nehru Leadership Institute of New Delhi, the court said that "you work at an Institute named after a Prime Minister. Why don't you ask the university to remove it?" 

The bench further said, "I will go through the pleadings of the petitioner and see if there is any merit in the case. If I don't find any merit in his contentions, then I'll dispose of it." 

The petition reads that "Petitioner had received the paid COVID-19 vaccination from a private hospital and thereafter received a vaccination certificate. The certificate had the Prime Minister's colour photograph and the message: "medicine and strict controls (in Malayalam), together India will defeat COVID-19 (in English)" with attribution to Prime Minister Narendra Modi." 

"The national campaign against COVID-19 is being converted into a media campaign for the Prime Minister. The petitioner also addressed a representation to the Central government for a vaccine certificate without the PM's photograph but did not receive any response," the petition further read. 

Courtesy: ANI