The appeal filed by the former Kerala Police Association (KPA) general secretary, G.R. Ajith, against the stay granted on the police association reorganisation order has been disposed of by the Kerala High Court, with the petitioner withdrawing from the case. 

The court orally observed that Mr. Ajith had filed the appeal in the Division Bench before challenging it at the Single Bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, who had issued the stay. It remarked that approaching the Division Bench against an interim order of a Single Bench before addressing it there set a wrong precedent and that it could not be entertained. 

Dismissing the case as withdrawn, the Division Bench of Justices A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and A.K. Preetha stated that the petitioner would be allowed to file an appeal against any order passed by the Single Bench after it considered his application for setting aside the stay order.

The matter pertains to an order by the Additional Chief Secretary (Home), abolishing the Kerala Police Officers Association (KPOA) and redistributing its members and assets among the KPA and the Kerala Police Senior Officers Association (KPSOA). 

The Single Bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas had stayed the operation of the Secretary’s order in a petition by the KPA, observing that no reasons were given for the restructure, and that once the process was complete, there could be no return. The order also stayed the functioning of an ad hoc committee, tasked with the temporary administration of the KPOA since the Secretary’s order would cancel its elected body. The KPA had argued that three police associations were functioning independently with different objectives for the past five decades.

This order was reiterated in a petition filed by KPOA contending that amending its constitution would require the presence of a two-thirds majority of the general body of the association and that two-thirds of the present members would have to approve the change.