Kochi: In a sharp rebuke over Ernakulam district administration's handling of a controversial soil excavation project in Thirumarady near Muvattupuzha, the Kerala High Court has pulled up Ernakulam District Collector G Priyanka for "serious inaction".

The Court's displeasure peaked on Tuesday, when Justice C Jayachandran rejected the administration's excuse that the Collector was "busy with elections" to explain a three-month delay in complying with the Court's direction to visit the site, inspect and do a technical investigation. The Court noted that despite the elections concluding days ago, "precious little" had been done by the Collector to address the judicial directives.

During the hearing on Tuesday, the Senior Government Pleader attempted to defend the delay by citing the Collector's election duties, a justification the court summarily dismissed. Justice Jayachandran expressed particular annoyance that the Collector had delegated a critical site inspection to a Deputy Collector, a move that stood in direct violation of a specific High Court order from October 14, 2025. That previous order had explicitly directed the District Collector, in her capacity as Chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), to personally conduct the enquiry and file the report.

"This Court fails to understand under whose instructions, and on what authority the Deputy Collector visited the property, when the direction of this Court... was specifically to the District Collector," Justice Jayachandran stated in the order.

The legal battle centres on a proposal by the RU Human Foundation in Ernakulam, represented by its Chairman, PU Rajan, to build a medical college in Thirumarady. The project requires levelling a hilltop property, necessitating the removal of huge quantities of soil. While the foundation secured a building permit in 2021, the Thirumarady Grama Panchayat and local residents raised alarm, warning that excavating the hilly terrain would destabilise the area, endanger over 100 houses, and destroy 67 natural water channels.

The High Court's frustration stems from a long history of the administration ignoring specific judicial mandates. The intervention began in April 2024, when Justice Viju Abraham first invoked the Disaster Management Act, ordering a technical study to verify if the excavation would cause landslides or water shortages.

Matters escalated in October 2025, when Justice C Jayachandran set aside earlier orders that had permitted the excavation. In that judgement, the Court labelled the Collector's handling of the matter as "contemptuous disregard" for safety concerns, finding that the administration had ignored resident complaints and failed to conduct a proper technical investigation. Consequently, the Court ordered the Collector to "re-do" the entire process personally within one month, a deadline that expired in November 2025.

Despite these strict instructions to avoid delegation, the administration erred by sending a Deputy Collector to the site for the latest inspection. Facing the Court's ire, the Government Pleader sought one day's time to rectify the situation, and the matter was posted for an immediate hearing on Wednesday.

When the matter came for hearing today, the Government Pleader submitted that the District Collector would visit the site on January 27. "Based on the Government Pleader's submission, the Court has posted the case for hearing on January 28. The Collector is expected to inform the Court by when she can submit the report of the site inspection on the 28th," said Shyson P Manguzha, the lawyer for RU Human Foundation.

Manguzha also said that the project or the excavation of the soil would not affect the house and water channels in the area, as claimed by the panchayat, and it is expected to be clear in the Collector's report.