Art.226 - Public Duty - Refusal to perform - Madamus can be issued- The Writ of Mandamus is a very wide remedy available against public officers to see that they do their public duty as ordained by the statute. A member of public can enforce the public duty by discretionary remedy and the attention of the Court. The remedy is a permitting an application to be made by any member of the public though it will refuse it to a mere busy body who is interfering in things which do not concern him. [Alphonse v. State of Kerala, 1986 KLT 1376, Varghese Kalliath (J)]
Art.226 - A breach of a promise in a manifesto is not a matter for this Court to consider under Article 226. If a political party has given such a promise, perhaps, it may have a moral obligation. Normally, this court cannot issue a mandamus to discharge this obligation. Normally, this Court can issue a writ of mandamus only when a statutory functionary or the Government declines to discharge its statutory obligations even after repeated demands. There is no statutory obligation on the part of the Government in regard to the promise made in the manifesto. Courts have to be judicious, careful and prudent in seeing that they should not overstep the confines of their powers. The reason is plain and clear because to them is assigned the function of being the guardian of the Constitution. This is the great expectation of the founding fathers, of the Constitution. It is a faith and trust reposed by the framers of the Constitution in the Courts and their position in this respect is akin to that of a trustee. When the other agencies or wings of the State overstep their limits, the aggrieved parties can always approach the courts and seek redress against such transgression. [Santhosh Kumar v. State of Kerala, 1988 (2) KLT 209, Varghese Kalliath (J)]
Art.226 - Under Article 226, Courts cannot interfere with investigation. Writ of mandamus cannot be issued against a court in order to interfere with complaint before the Criminal Court. [Micro Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals v. Dineshan, 1990 (1) KLT 731, Chetoor Sankaran Nair (J)]
Art.226 - Writ of mandamus can be issued to the Co-operative Bank - Since it is performing public duty and service conditions of employees of the societies are not of a private character. [Saraswathy Amma v. Kerala State Co-operative Bank, 1990 (2) KLT 755 = 1990 (2) KLJ 784, Radhakrishna Menon (J)]