Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking halt for Vande Bharat train at Tirur railway station

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking a halt for the Vande Bharat Express at the Tirur railway station in Kerala's Malapuram district [PT Sheejish v Union of India & Ors]..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra expressed its reservations about the court's involvement in deciding train stops."You want us to decide which train stops it should have. Now we will also take a call on stations from Delhi to Mumbai Rajdhani. Sorry dismissed," the Court said..The plea before the apex court challenged a May 2 decision of the Kerala High Court rejecting such a prayer.A division bench consisting of Justices Bechu Kurian Thomas and C Jayachandran of the High Court had dismissed the plea stating that halting points of a train are determined by the Indian Railways and no one has a vested right to demand halt for a train at a particular station.The appeal before the apex court said that as per the first schedule of train stop initially announced by the Indian Railways for Vande Bharat, Tirur railway station was allotted a stop for the commuters in Malappuram district. Subsequently, the Indian Railways remove the halt at Tirur railway station and instead another railway station, Shornur in Palakkad district was allotted the stop, which is roughly 56 kilometer away from Tirur.The action of calling back the railway stop that was proposed to be allotted to Tirur railway station is significantly due to political reasons, which is sheer injustice to the entire people of Malappuram district, the petition said. The plea filed through advocates Sriram Parakkat and MS Vishnu Shankar further stated that the petitioner does not have a vested interest and has only highlighted a larger public interest as the issue affects lakhs of citizens living in Malappuram district.