After strike, Kerala Law Academy begins to abide by the law

With the 29-day-long student protests ending on a high after all political parties barring the CPI-M and its students' wing supporting the students, the management of Kerala Law Academy on Saturday began abiding by the law of the land and removed its main gate -- one of the focal points of the stir.

The action comes after former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan last month in a letter to State Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekheran requested to probe allegations that the academy had usurped land.

Revenue Secretary P.H. Kurian, who was entrusted with the job of preparing a preliminary report with regards to the land, told IANS that the campus here consists of two segments of land -- a 10 acre plot and another of one acre and 49 cents.

"The entire land has been with the academy since 1968. But they have been asked to demolish the main gate as the place where the gate has been put was never assigned to them. They have been served a notice to explain how a bank and a hotel are functioning," said Kurian.

The students started protest against the high handedness and the rude behaviour of academy principal Lekshmi Nair.

With frontline political parties joining the students, skeletons began to tumble out with regards to the usurping of the land and its affiliation.

While the students managed to see the removal of the principal and an advertisement gone out for a new principal, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are determined to see that its now ageing Director Narayanan Nair, who has been running the academy from the beginning as his personal fiefdom, be reined in.

His daughter Lekshmi Nair has already been removed as the principal.

Even though the Communist Party of India (CPI), the second biggest ally in the ruling Left government, is also for reining in the academy, informed sources said it would not be an easy task to recover the land as it could lead to long drawn legal battles.

With the upcoming assembly session starting from February 23 and Achuthanandan writing another letter to the Revenue Minister asking him to ensure that all aspects of the land owned by the Kerala Law Academy are scrutinised properly, the pressure would be on the father and daughter duo to prove they have not violated the rules of assignment of land.

The land was given to the academy almost five decades back.

--IANS

sg/py/vm