The Kerala High Court on Tuesday denied reports that M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Kerala Chief Minister, had interfered in the appointment of its IT experts.
Originally, the proposal was to have a permanent IT cadre for the High Court. After a series of deliberations held with the government and the High Court, a meeting convened by the then Chief Secretary on May 9, 2018, decided to appoint five IT experts on contract basis as they found that the proposal to create an IT cadre would not serve the purpose, judicial sources said.
Apart from Mr. Sivasankar, the deliberations were attended by a few officials, including Subrotho Biswas, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home; Manoj Joshi, Secretary Finance; G. Kamala Vardhana Rao, former Principal Secretary; and a representative of the National Informatics Centre.
Qualifications
The qualifications for the IT experts were prescribed by then IT secretary to the Registrar General of the Kerala High Court. The qualifications thus prescribed were reviewed and approved by the Computerisation Committee of the High Court which had judges as its members. It was after the approval of the committee that the notification for the post issued, the sources said.
Around 100 candidates applied for the post from which five were picked up. The selection was carried out by a three-member panel headed by a High Court judge who was also an engineering graduate and Mr. Sivasankar had no role in the process, sources said.
Govt. decision
Though the NIC was the solution provider for the Kerala High Court, the decision to go for IT experts was taken at the government level as the authorities felt that they “cannot expect the NIC to address the HR issues to meet the desired objectives as it warrants the fundamental changes in the HR practices of NIC,” judicial sources pointed out.
Any investigation into the various departments of the High Court would be possible only with the prior permission of the Chief Justice of the High Court. Till date, no agency has approached the court for any investigation, sources said.
