MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate seeking direction to protect and permit traditional fishermen to travel in fibreglass reinforced plastic (FRP) motorized boats to attend the annual festival at St Antony's shrine in Katchatheevu.
The litigant, J Brinso Raymond of Olaikuda in Rameswaram, stated that people earlier used country boats to travel to the island but it was restricted by authorities citing it was slow and unsafe. Later, the fishermen upgraded to FRP motorized boats, and sought permission from the court to use them for this year's festival.
Though the court, in a similar petition last year, had recognized the right of the fishermen to visit the island for the festival and directed authorities to consider his representation, the authorities rejected it stating FRP boats must be used only for fishing and are unsuitable and unsafe to ferry passengers. This year, he challenged the rejection order as well.
Hearing the plea, a bench of justices G Jayachandran and KK Ramakrishnan opined that the rejection order was well meant and reasonable. Moreover, the division bench, which heard the previous petition last year, had only suggested to the government to explore the possibility of using mechanized vessels to ferry passengers to the festival and the same is not a mandate, the judges added and dismissed the petition.