Governor rejects State nominee to Information Commission

Clears four, strikes down CPI(M)’s functionary’s name

The State government appeared to have suffered a setback on Thursday with Governor P. Sathasivam striking out the name of A. A. Rasheed, one of if its favoured nominees, from the panel of candidates short-listed for appointment as members of the Kerala State Information Commission.

Official sources said that a police background check had revealed that Mr. Rasheed, a district-level CPI(M) functionary reckoned to be close to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, faced criminal prosecution for his alleged involvement in an extensive Kerala University (KU) appointment fraud in 2005.

At the time, Mr. Rasheed was a member of the KU Senate. The case against him was that he and six other KU officials had thwarted the potential employment prospects of as many as s 45,538 graduates who had taken an examination for appointment to the post of University Assistants Grade-II in 2005 by methodically distorting the selection process to benefit a few hundred candidates favoured by them.

The Crime Branch had subsequently charged Mr. Rasheed with conspiracy, cheating, corruption, nepotism, falsification of records, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, forgery and destruction of evidence. The offences entail a minimum punishment of seven years of imprisonment. The suspects have since denied the charges and challenged the accusations against them in court.

A committee headed by the Chief Minister and comprising Minister for Law A.K. Balan and Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala had named five persons as Commission members and send the list to Mr. Sathasivam for gubernatorial assent.

The others are K.V.Sudhakaran, former press secretary to Administrative Reforms Commission chairperson V. S. Achuthanandan; P.R. Sreelatha, a secretariat employe; Somadasan Pillai; and R.G. Vivekanandan.

Mr. Sathasivam cleared the names of all other nominees for appointment as Commission members except that of Mr. Rasheed. It appeared he had given some weightage to the purported police verification report against Mr. Rasheed.

The State had pushed for a speedy appointment to make up for the lack of members, which had arguably impeded the functioning of the Commission. Former Director General of Police Vinson M. Paul currently heads the commission. Officials said the Commission faced a massive backlog of appeals pending a final decision.