The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking to restrain messages and emails allegedly sent by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) to government officials highlighting the achievements of the state government. Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas rejected the plea filed by two petitioners who had claimed that such communications amounted to election campaigning.
The petition was filed by Dr. Rasheed Ahammed, an associate professor at a college in Malappuram, and Anil Kumar K. M., a clerical assistant working at the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. They had approached the High Court alleging that messages circulated by the CMO to government employees were effectively promotional in nature and should be restrained.
According to the petitioners, the messages were allegedly sent using personal data accessed through official government databases. They claimed that the information was drawn from the Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK), which is commonly used to notify employees about the credit of monthly salaries and other benefits.
The plea also alleged that data from the KSMART (Kerala Solutions for Managing Administrative Reformation and Transformation) system had been used for sending such communications.
The state government, however, denied these allegations during the proceedings.
After considering the matter, Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas dismissed the petition. The detailed order explaining the court’s reasoning is yet to be released.
SPARK is an e-governance platform under the Finance Department of Kerala that has been operational since 2007. The system was developed to digitalise human resource management and salary-related services for government employees across the state.
