Thiruvananthapuram: The issue of illegal regularization of contract employees by the LDF government rocked the House on the third day of this assembly’s final session.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala led the charge by releasing a letter written by Kerala state chalachitra academy chairman and director Kamal to cultural affairs minister A K Balan requesting regularization of the posts of four left sympathisers working in temporary posts in the academy.
Pointing out several instances of contractual and daily-wage employees being illegally regularized by the LDF government, Chennithala said all the appointments have been made by ignoring the adverse opinion of the finance and law departments on the basis of the Supreme Court verdict against such regularizations. “Such appointments, which flouted all rules, benefitted candidates who are close relatives of CPM leaders or CPM sympathizers,” he said.
In his letter, Kamal said all the four employees are left fellow travellers, and regularizing them would help the academy in retaining its leftist identity. Interestingly, all the four employees -- deputy director (festival) Shaji H; deputy director (programmes) N P Sajeesh; programme manager (festival) Rejoy K J; and, programme manager (programmes) Vimal Kumar V P -- have only four years of service with the academy. All of them were recruited by the present administration.
The law minister then instructed the cultural affairs secretary to “examine and put up” the letter for further processing. Chennithala said Balan has violated his oath of doing his duty without favour or affection and is not eligible to continue as a minister. He said the academy is not the feeder organization of CPM and it is not being run with funds from the party.
Seeking leave for an adjournment motion to discuss illegal appointments, Shafi Prambil MLA said the state government has transformed the public service commission into a party service commission and backdoor appointments in the government are conducted in such a manner as if they were being made to party offices. He said that lakhs of youngsters on PSC rank lists are knocking on the doors and the government has turned the state into a graveyard of rank lists.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan put up a feeble defence, claiming that the government has taken steps to hand over appointments to PSC, as much as possible. He said the government has till now appointed or has sent advice memo to 1,51,513 applicants through PSC. The government has created 27,000 permanent posts till now and is in the process of framing recruitment special rules to several government organizations, he added.
After speaker P Sreeramakrishnan refused to give permission for an adjournment motion, the opposition staged a walkout.
TOI has, through a series of articles, exposed how the government has been appointing contract employees in Kerala institute of local administration (KILA), Keltron and other organizations by violating SC orders.