KOCHI: A K Baburaj, 58, is a CPM supporter who runs a workshop at Palluruthy. Despite his political leniency, he was not ready for a compromise when loading workers affiliated to CITU threatened and took Rs 1,500 from him as nokkukooli when he brought a generator, weighing 4 tonnes, to his workshop and unloaded it using a crane.
He decided to fight it out legally even after CITU members dared him. His doggedness has yielded results with police registering a case against six workers and sessions court rejecting their anticipatory bail plea. “When they came to my workshop demanding Rs 1,500 as nokkukooli, I refused and raised the issue with CPM local leaders. But the CITU workers weren’t ready to listen to anyone.
They insisted that I should pay them. Though I was forced to bow to their pressure, I told them I will move legally and file a complaint,” Baburaj said adding that he wrote a complaint to High Court chief justice. “Police registered a case after the complaint was forwarded by the chief justice’s office to Kochi police chief,” he said.
Baburaj is content that his effort has made an impact and is happy that the sessions court rejected CITU members anticipatory bail applications. As per the Palluruthy Kasaba police station, the accused are K P Jijo, 26, and T S Sulfikar, 52, of Fort Kochi, K B Ajith, 29, K U Shiju, 36, N S Anandu, 25, and K A Shakeer, 50, of Palluruthy.
As per the police report submitted in the court, the generator was brought to the shop at around 5pm on September 22, 2021. “When the complainant refused to pay nokkukooli stating that the generator could only be safely unloaded with the help of crane, he was threatened by the accused and the lorry in which the generator was brought was laid under siege. At last, the complainant had to accede to the threat and coercion of the accused and he paid Rs 1,500 as demanded,” the report said.
Dismissing the bail pleas, Additional Sessions Judge G Girish said “the unfair practice of ‘nokkukooli’, which is prevalent across Kerala, has become a threat to the development of industry, commerce and trade in the state.
Time and again, the illegality has been deprecated by the High Court. Yet, certain trade unions continue to take the industrial establishments and other institutions to ransom by adopting this mischievous practice”.
Denying bail to the accused in the case, the court said the workers had threatened the workshop owner and had detained the lorry. “Any protection of pre-arrest bail granted to the accused in cases of this nature would give a wrong message to the society and result in the repetition of commission of offences of this nature,” the judge observed.