Collector can’t fix prices of food items

Kochi: The High Court on Wednesday quashed the price list published by the District Collector, Pathanamthitta, fixing prices of food items at hotels and restaurants in the district during the last Sabarimala season.

But the court made it clear that the judgment would not stand in the way of the Collector or the Travancore Devaswom Board fixing the food items price list at hotels and restaurants in Sabarimala and Pampa, temporarily put up during the pilgrimage season.

“Taking into account that a large number of pilgrims from North India and the neighbouring states...visit Sabarimala every pilgrimage season, the district administration should insist on the display of price list of food stuffs in English, Hindi, Kannada and Telugu,” observed the bench, comprising Justices PN Ravindran and Anil K Narendran.

The district unit of Kerala Hotel and Restaurants Association moved the court to quash the price list issued on November 13, 2011, arguing that the district administration fix prices in their hotels and insisting on their display by replacing the existing price list was illegal and without jurisdiction.

The court pointed out that Kerala Food Stuffs (Display of Prices by Catering Establishments) order mandated the display of the price of food stuffs sold in hotels/restaurants but the provision did not authorise the district administration to fix the price of food stuff.

"In the absence of an enabling provision for imposing such restrictions, it is impossible for the district administration to issue orders fixing price , unless the state... brings in legislation, which authorises restriction, thereby fettering the freedom of an entrepreneur", the court held.

HC dismisses pleas  against life science park in TVM

Holding that the proposed Life Sciences Park is of great public importance in producing pharmaceutical products and equipment for health and life care, Kerala High Court on Wednesday dismissed petitions against the land acquisition for the project.

Justice AV Ramakrishna Pillai was considering a batch of petitions challenging the government move to acquire land for a Life Science Park with world class facilities on 250 acres in Veiloor, Thiruvananthapuram.

HC quashes order to acquire Kumaran Asan’s land

The High Court has quashed the Land Revenue Commissioner’s order to acquire a portion of land from the ancestral property of poet Kumaran Asan at Thonnakal in Thiruvananthapuram, owned by the poet’s successors. Justice K V Ramakrisha Pillai passed the order on a petition by Nalini Vijayaraghavan and three other grandchildren of Asan challenging the order. Petitioners argued that one acre and 25 cents and an old house, where the late poet lived, had been gifted to the state for a memorial. Kumaran Asan National Institute of Culture, from which petitioners had been ousted, had started commercial diversion of the property and the building, they contended. The court said the petitioners had a genuine case that the institute’s need could not be classified as public purpose.