About 20 BJP councillors who took oath in the name of deities, martyrs and political movements during the swearing-in for the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation have been issued notice by the Kerala High Court over an alleged violation of the Kerala Municipality Act, for invoking names outside the scope of the statute, following a writ petition challenging the validity of the oaths taken by them.
The notice was issued by Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan, who admitted the writ petition questioning the manner in which the councillors invoked slogans such as “Gurudeva”, “Udayannoor Devi”, “Kavil Amma”, “Bhagavathi”, “Sree Padmanabha Swamy”, “Bharathamba”, sacrifices associated with political movements, “Bharatha Matha”, “Thiruvallam Parasuraman”, “Attukal Amma”, “Sree Irumkulangara Durga Bhagavathi”, “Padmanabhan and Sree Mahavishnu”, “Sreekanteswaran Ammayappan”, “Ayyappa”, and “Karyavattom Sree Dharma Sastha”, among others.
The petition contends that these invocations constituted a violation of Section 143 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994, which permits an oath only in the name of God or by way of a solemn affirmation and does not authorise any invocation beyond that statutory framework, and were also contrary to binding directions issued by the Kerala State Election Commission, Maktoob media reported.
According to the pleadings, the councillors had used a range of invocations during the oath-taking ceremony, including references to various Hindu deities, local temple traditions, spiritual figures, the concept of Bharat Mata, and sacrifices associated with political movements, which the petitioner claimed amounted to a conscious deviation from the Third Schedule appended to the Act.
It was further argued that an oath of office is fundamentally a constitutional undertaking and cannot be expanded to include loyalty to a political ideology, movement or symbolic figure, as such additions undermine the uniformity and legality of the process.
The petitioner relied on earlier judicial precedent to assert that strict adherence to the prescribed form of oath is mandatory, placing particular emphasis on the 2003 Kerala High Court judgment in Haridasan Palayil v. The Speaker, Kerala Legislative Assembly, which had held that any material deviation from the statutory form would render the oath invalid.
On this basis, the petitioner sought directions requiring the councillors to explain the authority under which they continued to hold office and requested the court to declare the impugned oaths invalid.
While issuing notice, the High Court observed that the statute clearly contemplates an oath in the name of God or a solemn affirmation, while also noting that the conception of God may vary between individuals, which raised an important legal question as to whether an oath could validly be taken in the name of a person or entity regarded as divine by the oath-taker. The court clarified that the continuance of the councillors in office would be subject to the final outcome of the writ petition.
The matter, registered as WP(C) 1502/2026, has been posted after notice to the Kerala State Election Commission, the concerned councillors and other respondents. The controversy had earlier been flagged by the CPM, which in December approached the district collector and the chief electoral officer seeking action against the councillors, while party leaders argued that the oaths violated prescribed rules.
The dispute also recalls a similar 2003 case in which the High Court invalidated an oath taken in the name of Guru Deva by an MLA, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court.