HC junks plea to remove PM's photo from COVID vaccine certificates

Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea to remove Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photo from COVID vaccine certificates issued via the CoWIN portal.  The Court also imposed costs of one lakh rupees on the petitioner stating that the plea is frivolous and seems to have been filed with political motives. The Court directed the petitioner, Peter Myaliparampil, to deposit the cost in favour of the Kerala State Legal Services Authority (KeLSA) within six weeks. The judgment was delivered by single-judge Justice PV Kunhikrishnan on a petition filed by a Right to Information activist who claimed to have received paid COVID-19 vaccination from a private hospital. The court said in case of a failure to deposit the cost within the stipulated period, KeLSA shall recover the amount from Myaliparampil’s assets by initiating revenue recovery proceedings against him.

The court also said that the “frivolous contentions” by the petitioner objecting to the PM’s photo and his “morale boosting message” on the vaccination certificate was “not expected from a citizen of the country”. It also said that when there are thousands of criminal appeals, bail pleas, civil suits and matrimonial cases pending in the courts, frivolous petitions like this one are a waste of judicial time. The court had previously asked what was wrong with Covid-19 vaccination certificates carrying the photograph of the Prime Minister, considering he was elected to power by the people of the country.