THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the controversial appointments of relatives of CPM leaders including ministers causing huge embarrassment, the LDF government on Thursday decided to bring a legislation to check favouritism and nepotism. The decision to bring legislation for regulating such appointments was taken at the Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The clearance of Vigilance department will be made mandatory for appointment to posts of managing directors and general managers in public sector units.
In order to ensure that these appointments are subjected to Vigilance nod, the Cabinet decided to appoint a high-level committee comprising technical experts including those at the national level to select probables for appointment to various important posts in public sector units. Meanwhile, Cabinet asked chief secretary S.M. Vijayanand to look into the allegations regarding the controversial appointments made recently including those of Jayarajan’s relatives P. K. Sudheer and Deepthi Nishad.
The appointment of Mr Sudheer, who is son of CPM central committee member and Kannur MP P.K. Sreemathy, as managing director of Kerala State Industrial Enterprises Ltd (KSIE) was scrapped and Ms Deepthi, who is the daughter-in-law of Mr Jayarajan’s brother, had resigned from the post of general manager of Kerala Clays and Ceramics Ltd on Wednesday.
However, the chief secretary will be looking into the procedures adopted for all controversial appointments including questions whether qualification, education, age and experience requirements for each posts were adhered to. It may be recalled that following the controversy, the industries minister had come up with a rather strange statement. He said Mr Sudheer’s appointment was scrapped as the department had rejected his request for extension of joining date.
In Ms Deepthi’s case, even the local leaders of the party had objected to the appointment. However, it was carried out at the behest of the minister much to their annoyance. The Cabinet decision on checking nepotism was posted was widely discussed by Facebook users. The post in Chief Minister’s official page received over 5,000 likes and it was shared by 1,300 users by evening.
