Mounting pressure on Kerala’s seven-month-old CPI(M)-led lDF Government, a section of Kerala’s IAS officers will go on a day’s leave on Monday to protest against the 'hunt' allegedly being carried out by Vigilance Director Jacob Thomas against senior IAS officers and the silence being adopted by the Government with regard to the corruption charges against him. This is the first time the IAS officers are staging such a protest in the State.
According to sources in the State’s IAS Association, about 30 of the total 150 IAS officers, including Additional
Chief Secretaries, had submitted leave letters to the Chief Secretary by Sunday evening. They said more officers might apply for leave. The senior civil servants will hold discussions with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the issues on Monday morning.
The decision to go on mass leave was taken by the IAS officers at a meeting on Saturday presided over by KM Abraham, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance, who was one of the victim’s of the Vigilance Director’s alleged hunt. A resolution adopted by the meeting said that the protest was for declaring solidarity with the “colleagues” who were being hunted by Thomas.
Though they will go on leave for a day, the officers have assured that they would attend to their essential official responsibilities on Monday. Also, officers who have the charge of law and order affairs and district collectors and sub-collectors would register their protest by attending to their duties on Monday though they on leave.
The IAS officers have been unhappy about some of the actions of Thomas as Vigilance Director for quite some time but the immediate provocation for the current move is the naming of Paul Antony, Additional Chief Secretary, Industries Department, as the third accused in a case of nepotism in which former Industries Minister EP Jayarajan is the first accused.
The Vigilance had registered the FIR, which named Antony as one of the three accused, on Friday. The case pertains to the appointment of Sudheer Nambiar, son of Jayarajan’s sister in law and Marxist MP from Kannur, PK Sreemathi, as managing director of a public sector company when Jayarajan was Industries minister. Nambiar is the second accused in the case.
The IAS officers’ argument is that Jacob Thomas has been acting illegally against Antony as he had nothing to do with the appointment and that he had only obeyed the minister’s instructions. As per a 2010 Government circular, the Industries minister can make appointments to the top positions in institutions under the department and so Antony had no role in it, they say.
“That the IAS officers are going for mass leave protest shows that the State is going into administrative crisis. The Government has lost control over the bureaucrats. State administration under the lDF has been at a standstill for the past six months. The bureaucrats’ protest shows that the lDF rule is a total failure,” said Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala.