Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the government had suspended his former Principal Secretary M. Sivasankar from service pending a detailed inquiry.
A committee headed by Chief Secretary Vishwas Mehta and Additional Chief Secretary, Finance, Rajesh Kumar Singh had found that Mr. Sivasankar had actively broken the rules that govern the conduct of civil service officers by “closely associating” with persons currently under investigation for gold smuggling and anti-national activity.
The inquiry had centred on how Swapna Suresh, the second accused in the high-profile case, had dodged multiple layers of vetting to gain employment as marketing liaison officer of the government-run Space Park project. Swapna’s alleged association with Mr. Sivasankar had brought the scandal surrounding the attempt to smuggle gold via air cargo shipments addressed to the UAE consulate here awkwardly close to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
The stark reality of the national security implications of the case emerged in the public domain when the Central government ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that specialised in terrorist crimes. The development also led to increasingly strident calls from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for Mr. Vijayan’s resignation.
Swapna’s posting
The committee had reportedly verified whether Mr. Sivasankar had used his administrative and political heft to nudge the plum posting in the direction of Swapna. Mr. Vijayan did not reveal the entire findings of the committee. But he said Mr. Mehta had frowned upon the practice of outsourcing appointments in IT Department projects to private consultancies or placement agencies.
The Chief Secretary had suggested an institutionalised mechanism to insulate the recruitment process from extraneous influence, the Chief Minister said. Moreover, Mr. Mehta had also verified whether specific postings in the IT Department subsidiaries were in order.
Mr. Vijayan said Arun Balachandran, whose name was linked by some sections of the media to the gold smuggling scandal, was no more an “IT Fellow” under his office. He said Mr. Balachandran, who had sat on the government's IT advisory body, had come with the reference of major stakeholders in the sector.
The Customs had questioned Mr. Sivasankar in connection with the case on Wednesday.
P.S. Sarith, the first accused in the case, will be produced before the Special Court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday.
Swapna Suresh and Sandeep, who were arrested by the NIA, earlier were slapped with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, as the agency believed that the proceeds from the smuggling of gold were used for terror funding. Sarith also has been charged with the Act.
