Beats of an old custom fade away from Keralam’s courts
The drumbeat that once carried royal orders across village squares and later signalled court-ordered property attachments will no longer reverberate outside Keralam’s courthouses. The Kerala High Court’s Rules Committee has decided to remove the provision that allowed announcements by “tom-tom” and “kinnam mutti vilambaram” to publicise attachment proceedings, drawing a firm line under a practice rooted in princely and colonial administrations.
The decision
The move follows a campaign by rights activist Boban Mattumanta, who questioned the relevance of the centuries-old custom in the era of official notices, newspapers, television and social media. These platforms, he argued, can reach wider audiences more reliably and with better documentation than a beat of drums or clanging of metal in public squares.
The tom-tom method had persisted in law under Sub-rule 2 of Rule 54 of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which laid down procedures for proclaiming property attachment orders. While the Kerala High Court’s Rules Committee decision effectively retires this component from the rule book in the State, the practice had already been fading in many districts.
Origins in royal proclamation
The tradition traces back to the era of princely rule, when proclamations of the king were delivered in public spaces. Officials would assemble people in markets and other busy locations, draw attention with a drumbeat, and then read out the order. The British colonial administration adapted similar methods to ensure that legal and administrative notices—especially those involving enforcement actions like attachments—were heard by as many as possible in an era without mass media.
Over time, the approach became a formalised part of court procedure, its endurance owed more to legal continuity than to demonstrable necessity in a modern communications environment. The Malayalam phrase “kinnam mutti vilambaram” refers to the beating of a metal plate to draw a crowd before announcing the order, a variant that coexisted with the tom-tom drumbeat in different parts of the State.
Where it lingered—and where it didn’t
Although tom-toming had largely vanished from district courts in Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode, the metal-plate announcement continued in some places. Regardless of the method used, officials also recorded the announcements in court records, maintaining a paper trail alongside the public performance of notice.
Even as the practice thinned out, it retained a formal—if dwindling—presence in enforcement proceedings. The decision to remove the provision brings the written rules in line with on-ground realities in much of the State’s court system, where modern notification methods have already assumed the primary role.
The cost of keeping a custom alive
For an ostensibly symbolic relic, tom-toming carried a cost. Information obtained under the Right to Information Act revealed that the Palakkad District Court, Sub Court and Munsiff Court together collected ₹56,600 as “tom-tom charges” between January and October 2022. The fee itself had been revised a decade earlier: in 2016, the tom tom charge was raised from ₹15 to ₹100.
That revision, too, drew criticism in hindsight. “It is strange that no one questioned this archaic practice even in 2016, when the tom tom charge was raised from ₹15 to ₹100. It shows how lethargic our system had become,” said Mr. Mattumantha.
Why the change now
Proponents of the shift note that the original point of drum-beating—ensuring that a legal proclamation did not go unheard—no longer requires a physical performance to be effective. With official notices, postal communication, newspaper publication, television, and digital platforms available, the courts can rely on channels that are both more precise in their reach and easier to verify for record-keeping and appeal processes.
The Rules Committee’s decision closes the chapter on a practice that had straddled three distinct periods: royal governance, colonial administration and the modern Indian judiciary. In each, the method served the same purpose—publicity of an authority’s decision—yet each transition in communications technology reduced the practical value of a loud, public announcement.
What changes for court users
With the provision now being removed, courts in Keralam will no longer direct or record tom-tom or metal-plate proclamations when attaching properties. Proceedings will continue to be announced and recorded through established legal channels, but without the performative step that once stood in for public notice.
For litigants, lawyers and enforcement officials, the change is unlikely to alter the substance of attachment proceedings. It does, however, eliminate a step that carried both a procedural cost and a symbolic weight. And for the public, it marks the quiet end of a sound that, for centuries, served as a cue to gather and listen when the law—or the crown—had something to say.
A tradition falls silent
From market squares of princely rule to colonial enforcement and into the early decades of independent India, the beat of drums and metal plates guaranteed that official words reached the ear. As Keralam’s courts move fully into the age of print and digital notice, that beat finally fades. A practice born of necessity, sustained by habit, and overtaken by technology is now set to pass into history—its last echoes preserved only in court records and collective memory.
