The State government has extended the suspension pending enquiry of M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, by four months.
The government had suspended Mr Sivasankar in July after a committee headed by Chief Secretary Vishwas Mehta found preliminary proof that he had violated civil service conduct rules.
The main charge against Mr Sivasankar was that he had appointed Swapna Suresh as marketing liaison officer of Space Project when she was already under the employment of the UAE consulate as executive secretary to the consul general.
Political liability
Moreover, Mr Sivasankar's association with Swapna had become a political liability for the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) named her an accused in the UAE consulate-linked gold smuggling case. The government had constituted a Suspension Review Committee, as per Rule 3 (8) of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, to review Mr Sivasankar's case.
From September 15
The suspension review committee had recommended to the competent authority to continue the suspension of Mr. Sivasankar for a further period of 120 days with effect from 15.09.2020.
Consequently, the State government had accepted the recommendation of the suspension review committee.
