Mixed day for beleaguered Kerala Health Minister

Kochi/Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 24 (IANS) Thursday brought mixed news for Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja, who is facing nepotism charges.

While she got a huge relief in court, with a division bench of the Kerala High Court deciding to expunge the remarks made by a single judge against her last week, the state Lokayukta ordered a probe in the same case.

Shailaja is under fire over the appointment of one of her party members to the state Commission for Protection of Child Rights, while the candidature of a qualified woman was overlooked.

Following the single judge observation that the Minister had misused her office, the Congress-led opposition has been up in arms in the state Assembly.

For the past four days, five of the opposition legislators have been on an indefinite protest in the foyer of the House demanding that she quit.

With Thursday being the last day of the present session of the Assembly, the matter again surfaced as Congress legislator K.C. Joseph sought leave for an adjournment motion but like earlier, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan ruled out Shailaja's resignation.

Following this, the opposition legislators walked out of the House.

This is the first time in the state that a minister has been so rapped by the high court.

After the observation by the single judge, the state government approached the division bench for the remarks to be expunged and got a relief. The case, however, has been posted for further hearing on Friday.

The happiness for Shailaja though was short-lived as the Thiruvananthapuram-based Lokayukta, after going through a complaint by Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, found that there was a case in it and asked Shailaja to appear on September 16 with all the documents.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)