29 October 2026
A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has split on whether to stay the insolvency resolution of Think and Learn Private Limited, the owner of the ed-tech firm Byju's. Justice K. Natarajan and Justice Johnson John took different views, so the question now goes to the Chief Justice, who will assign a third judge. The review petition comes from Voizzit Technology, a creditor that says it owns the company, and asks the court to recall its 12 June judgment upholding a Single Judge's refusal to order a central agency investigation. Voizzit's objection is to the seat given on the Committee of Creditors to GLAS Trust Company LLC, which puts itself forward as the representative of lenders behind a loan of 1.2 billion dollars to the firm's subsidiary in the United States; it says that claim was never properly checked. The petition also cites a disciplinary order passed by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India against a former interim resolution professional. The matter had been listed for 6 November and was taken up earlier.
Company in insolvency:
Think and Learn Private Limited
Loan claimed by GLAS Trust:
$1.2 billion
Why it matters for exams: The Committee of Creditors, the corporate insolvency resolution process and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India are standard Economy and Law questions.
Kerala PSCUPSCBank
Background
Kerala's most recent local body by-elections were held in 38 wards spread across 12 districts, and the authority that ran them was the State Election Commission, not the Election Commission of India. That body is written into the Constitution itself. Article 243K hands the superintendence, direction and control of electoral rolls, and of every election to the Panchayats, to a State Election Commission. The Commission is a one-member body: a State Election Commissioner whom the Governor appoints. The Governor settles his tenure and conditions of service by rule, and that rule gives way to any law the State legislature passes on the subject. He can be removed only in the same way, and on the same grounds, as a Judge of a High Court, and his service conditions cannot be worsened once he has taken office. Whatever staff the Commission asks for, the Governor has to make available.
Constitutional provision:
Article 243K
Members:
One State Election Commissioner
Appointing authority:
Governor of the State
Why it matters for exams: Article 243K, the one-member State Election Commission and the Governor's power to appoint and protect its Commissioner are standing Polity questions on local government.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Article 243K Elections to the Panchayats — The Article that vests panchayat election work in a State Election Commission.
SEC State Election Commission — The one-member State body that conducts elections to the Panchayats.
Background
Sabarimala has opened for its Thulam month poojas, and the Chief Minister has said that offerings and prasadam there stay under the control of the Travancore Devaswom Board. The Board is a creature of statute: the Travancore-Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act, 1950, Act 15 of 1950. The Act vests in it the administration of the incorporated and unincorporated Devaswoms and of the Hindu religious endowments that were managed by the Ruler of Travancore, while expressly keeping the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple and its properties out. The Board has three Hindu members; the Hindus in the Council of Ministers name one and the Hindu members of the Legislative Assembly elect another. It is a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, and it sues and is sued in its own name. A member must live permanently in the State, profess Hinduism and have turned thirty-five, holds office for four years, and can be removed by the High Court for proved misbehaviour or incapacity. The Devaswom Commissioner, appointed by the Board, is the chief executive of the Devaswom Department.
Governing Act:
Travancore-Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act, 1950 (Act 15 of 1950)
Members:
Three Hindu members
Term of a member:
Four years
Why it matters for exams: The Travancore-Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act, the Board's three-member composition and the exclusion of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple are repeatedly asked in Kerala PSC Polity papers.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
TDB Travancore Devaswom Board — The statutory board that administers the Devaswoms of the old Travancore region, Sabarimala among them.
Devaswom Temple estate and its endowments — A temple together with the lands and funds attached to it.
Background
The Kerala High Court has taken on record a status report from the Member Secretary of the Kerala State Legal Services Authority on the Victim Compensation Scheme, and has told the State to release ₹9,73,85,000 held up in 225 cases. The Authority that files those reports is set up by statute. Section 6 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 requires every State Government to constitute a Legal Services Authority for the State. Its Patron-in-Chief is the Chief Justice of the High Court. Its Executive Chairman is a sitting or retired Judge of the High Court, named by the Governor after consulting the Chief Justice, and the other members are nominated by the State Government in the same consultation. The Member-Secretary is drawn from the State Higher Judicial Service and cannot rank below a District Judge. Running costs, including the salaries and pensions of its staff, come out of the Consolidated Fund of the State, and no act of the Authority is void merely because a seat is vacant or its constitution is defective.
Statutory provision:
Section 6, Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987
Patron-in-Chief:
Chief Justice of the High Court
Expenses met from:
Consolidated Fund of the State
Why it matters for exams: Section 6 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, the Chief Justice as Patron-in-Chief and the Consolidated Fund of the State as the source of funds are frequently asked in Polity and legal-aid questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
KeLSA Kerala State Legal Services Authority — The State body that runs legal aid, Lok Adalats and the victim compensation machinery in Kerala.
DLSA District Legal Services Authority — The district arm that processes and pays out legal aid and compensation claims.
Background
The Kerala High Court's Munnar Bench has proposed a Special Task Force to carry out the recommendations that government committees have made on illegal encroachments in Munnar, Vagamon and nearby areas of Idukki district. The land those recommendations are about came to the Government through a single State Act. The Kannan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands) Act, 1971, Act 5 of 1971, applies to the revenue village of Kannan Devan Hills in the Devicolam taluk, which the Act places in the Kottayam district as the districts then stood. Its preamble recites that the Poonjar Chief had leased the village to John Daniel Munroe for coffee cultivation, that the lessor's rights passed to the Travancore government, and that Kerala succeeded to them. From the appointed day the possession of all land in that village stood transferred to the Government, free from all encumbrances, and the rights of lessees and mortgagees in it were extinguished. The Act kept plantations and buildings out of that vesting, except those belonging to trespassers, along with play-grounds, burial and burning grounds, land in the possession of a government or of the State Electricity Board, and so much of a lessee's own cultivation as was within the ceiling limit applicable to him. A plantation holder who needed resumed land for the plantation had sixty days from the Act's publication in the Gazette to apply to the Land Board set up under the Kerala Land Reforms Act, whose order on the extent needed is final.
Act:
Kannan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands) Act, 1971 (Act 5 of 1971)
Taluk named in the Act:
Devicolam
Original lessee:
John Daniel Munroe
Why it matters for exams: The Kannan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands) Act, the Devicolam taluk, the Poonjar lease to John Daniel Munroe and the Land Board under the Kerala Land Reforms Act are the exam facts behind every Munnar land story.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Resumption of lands Taking back of leased land by the State — The State taking possession of land it had leased out, so that it can be given for cultivation.
Land Board Land Board under the Kerala Land Reforms Act — The statutory board that settles how much land a plantation can keep back.
Background
Co-Keralam, planned as India's first airline in the co-operative sector, is moving to hand its registration certificate and bylaws to the State government, with about 200 co-operative societies expected to put in ₹2 crore each. Every co-operative society in the State lives under one law. The Kerala Cooperative Societies Act, 1969, Act 21 of 1969, consolidates, amends and unifies the law on co-operative societies in Kerala, and a society means one registered or deemed to be registered under it. Section 3 lets the Government appoint a Registrar of Cooperative Societies for the State, and the Registrar's powers can be conferred on others. A society whose area of operation is the whole State, whose members are only other societies with similar objects, and which the Registrar declares as such, is an apex society; one with jurisdiction over one or more revenue districts but not the whole State, again with only societies as members, is a central society. Elections inside the sector are run by a State Co-operative Election Commission constituted under Section 28B, of not more than three members, its State Chief Co-operative Election Commissioner an officer not below the rank of Special Secretary to Government. Audit is in the hands of a Director of Co-operative Audit with jurisdiction over the whole State, who works under the Registrar, and the audit report of an apex society is laid by the Government before the Legislative Assembly. Disputes go to a Co-operative Arbitration Court under Section 70A, with a Tribunal under Section 81 above it.
Act:
Kerala Cooperative Societies Act, 1969 (Act 21 of 1969)
Head of the department:
Registrar of Cooperative Societies
Election body:
State Co-operative Election Commission, not more than three members
Why it matters for exams: The Kerala Cooperative Societies Act, the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, the State Co-operative Election Commission and the Director of Co-operative Audit are the standing facts behind every co-operative sector story in Kerala.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Apex society Society with the whole State as its area — A society whose area of operation is the whole State, whose members are only other societies with similar objects, and which the Registrar has declared as such.
Bye-laws Registered bye-laws of a co-operative society — The society's own registered rules, which bind its members.
Background
The Kerala High Court has struck down Rule 7(37) of the Kerala Abkari Shops Disposal Rules, 2002, which barred the employment of women in any capacity in toddy shops, holding it against Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. Those rules are made under the Abkari Act, Kerala Act 1 of 1077 of the Malayalam Era. The Act was passed by the Maharaja of Cochin and was later stretched to the whole of Kerala by Act 10 of 1967, and it consolidates the law on the import, export, transport, manufacture, sale and possession of intoxicating liquor and intoxicating drugs. Under it, toddy is the juice, fermented or not, drawn from a coconut, palmyra, date or any other kind of palm tree, and to tap is to work on the spathe of such a tree to draw that juice. Country liquor means toddy or arrack, and foreign liquor is everything else. The officer who controls the Abkari Department, appointed by the Government, is styled the Commissioner of Excise, with Abkari Inspectors and subordinate officers under him. Abkari Revenue is the revenue the State draws from duty, fee, tax, fine or confiscation under the Act.
Act:
Abkari Act, Kerala Act 1 of 1077 (Malayalam Era)
Extended to all Kerala by:
Act 10 of 1967
Head of the department:
Commissioner of Excise
Why it matters for exams: The Abkari Act's definitions of toddy, country liquor and tapping, and the office of Commissioner of Excise, are the durable facts behind Kerala's liquor and toddy shop cases.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Abkari Excise, in the older Kerala usage — The old term for excise, kept in the name of Kerala's liquor law and its department.
Arrack Potable liquor other than toddy, beer, spirits of wine, wine, Indian made spirit, foreign liquor and approved medicinal preparations containing alcohol — A country spirit which, with toddy, makes up country liquor under the Act.
Background
Kerala PSC's latest extraordinary gazette has thrown open Category Numbers 151/2026 to 161/2026, with applications running to 4 November. When a quarrel over such a recruitment, or over the service conditions of a State employee, reaches court, it goes to an administrative tribunal rather than to a civil court, and the route runs through the Constitution. Article 323A lets Parliament provide by law for the trial by administrative tribunals of disputes and complaints about recruitment and the conditions of service of people appointed to public services and posts under the Union, a State, a local authority or a government-owned corporation. A law made under it can set up one tribunal for the Union and a distinct one for each State or for two or more States together, fix each tribunal's jurisdiction and powers, including the power to punish for contempt, and lay down the procedure it follows. The law that carries this out is the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. The Central Government establishes the Central Administrative Tribunal by notification, and it may establish an Administrative Tribunal for a State on receiving a request from that State Government. Two or more States can also agree, with the Centre's approval, to share a Joint Administrative Tribunal.
Constitutional provision:
Article 323A
Enabling law:
Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985
Subject matter:
Recruitment and conditions of service
Why it matters for exams: Article 323A, the Administrative Tribunals Act and the rule that the Centre sets up a State tribunal only on the State's request are standard Polity questions on tribunals.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Article 323A Administrative tribunals — The Article that lets Parliament set up tribunals for public service disputes.
CAT Central Administrative Tribunal — The tribunal the Central Government sets up for Union services.
Background
Temple administration is before the Kerala Legislative Assembly again: the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (Amendment) Bill is one of the Bills published for the Sixteenth Assembly, and it touches the law that governs temples in the old Malabar region, which was a district of the Madras Province before it joined Kerala. The oldest layer of this subject is a princely proclamation. Law-making in Travancore began with proclamations by its Maharaja, long before a representative body existed, and the Travancore Legislative Council came only later. Sri Chithira Thirunal, in whose reign the legislature was made bicameral, authored the Temple Entry Proclamation, which came to be known as the spiritual Magna Carta of Travancore. Travancore's enactments were called Regulations until a Proclamation changed the terminology of Regulations to Acts. After Travancore and Cochin were integrated, the new State's legislature put the same purpose into statute through the Travancore-Cochin Temple Entry (Removal of Disabilities) Act. Kerala's own Legislative Assembly, which now has the Malabar temples Bill before it, came after the integration of Travancore-Cochin and Malabar.
Issued by:
Sri Chithira Thirunal, Maharaja of Travancore
Known as:
The spiritual Magna Carta of Travancore
Later statute:
Travancore-Cochin Temple Entry (Removal of Disabilities) Act
Why it matters for exams: The Temple Entry Proclamation, its name as the spiritual Magna Carta of Travancore, the ruler who issued it and the Travancore-Cochin Temple Entry (Removal of Disabilities) Act are repeated Kerala history questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Proclamation Royal order having the force of law — In Travancore, an order of the Maharaja that worked as law before a legislature made Acts.
Regulations The earlier name for Travancore's enactments — What Travancore called its laws until a Proclamation renamed them Acts.
Background
A cause list is up for the Kerala Lok Ayukta's sitting on 30 October, one of the daily lists it issues for its court at Thiruvananthapuram. It rests on Act 8 of 1999, the Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, 1999, which took over from a 1987 law on corruption among public men. Its work is to inquire into corruption and mal-administration by public servants, a class that reaches from the Chief Minister at the top down to a panchayat member at the bottom. Its head is the Lok Ayukta, and only someone who has already sat as a Judge of the Supreme Court, or as Chief Justice of a High Court, may fill that post. Two Upa-Lok Ayuktas sit alongside, and each must be serving as a Judge of a High Court or have served as one. The Governor makes all three appointments on the advice of the Chief Minister, who first consults the Leader of the Opposition and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. The term runs five years, and at its end the holder may not be reappointed to that same post. A Registrar heads the registry, a District Judge brought on deputation from the Kerala Higher Judicial Service, and an Investigation Agency works with the forum, with an I.G of Police on it, a Superintendent of Police, Deputy Superintendents and other officers. Besides the court inside the Legislature complex at Thiruvananthapuram, camp sittings are held at Kottayam, Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Thalassery and Kannur, and filing a complaint costs nothing.
Governing Act:
Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, 1999 (Act 8 of 1999)
Upa-Lok Ayuktas:
Two
Term of office:
Five years
Why it matters for exams: The Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, the judicial qualification for the Lok Ayukta and the consultation with the Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition are standard Kerala PSC Polity questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Lok Ayukta Ombudsman of the State — The forum that inquires into corruption and mal-administration by the State's public servants.
Mal-administration Faulty or unreasonable administrative action — Administrative action so unreasonable or unjust that it causes injustice or undue hardship.
Background
Kerala has taken two wings of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, T1 and T2, outside the reach of the Right to Information Act, using the power Section 24(4) gives a State. Three limits ride on that power: material about corruption and material about human rights violations still cannot be shut out. Human rights material may be released only with the approval of the State Information Commission, and it has to be given within forty-five days. Every notification of this kind must also be placed before the State Legislature. The Commission named in that proviso is itself a creature of the same Act: Section 15 obliges every State Government to set up a State Information Commission through a notification in the Official Gazette. It is made up of a State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioners whose number may not go past ten, and the Governor appoints them all on the recommendation of a three-member committee chaired by the Chief Minister. The committee's other two members are a Cabinet Minister the Chief Minister names and the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly. Members of the Commission must be persons of eminence in public life with experience in fields such as law, social service, management, journalism or governance, and none of them may be a legislator or hold any other office of profit. The State Chief Information Commissioner runs the Commission's affairs, and the State Government fixes its headquarters by notification.
Statutory provision:
Section 15, Right to Information Act, 2005
Maximum Commissioners:
Ten, besides the State Chief Information Commissioner
Appointed by:
Governor, on a three-member committee's recommendation
Why it matters for exams: Section 15 on the composition of a State Information Commission and Section 24(4) on exempting a State's own intelligence bodies are both standing Right to Information questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
RTI Right to Information — The law that lets a citizen ask a public authority for its records.
SIC State Information Commission — The body that hears second appeals and imposes penalties under the information law in a State.
VACB Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau — Kerala's own anti-corruption investigating agency.