Accepted bribe for reappointment of teachers; Secretariat official arrested

KOTTAYAM: A Secretariat official has been arrested for taking a bribe to facilitate the reappointment of teachers. Suresh Babu, Assistant Section Officer in the Department of General Education, was arrested by the Kottayam Vigilance Unit. Earlier, Vijayan, a former teacher from Vadakara, was also taken into custody. The accused allegedly accepted a bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh from the complainants, promising to process and regularise the related files.

According to Vigilance officials, Vijayan had initially accepted the Rs 1.5 lakh bribe, claiming it was meant for officials in the General Education Department at the Secretariat to facilitate the reappointment of three teachers in Kottayam. It is in this connection that the departmental official at the Secretariat has now also been arrested.

Vijayan had contacted one of the teachers over the phone, claiming that the reappointment process for three aided higher secondary school teachers was being handled from the Secretariat. He informed them that there were issues in the file and that there would be delays. He also instructed the complainant to bring the other two teachers along and meet him in Thiruvananthapuram.

The complainant met Vijayan near the Secretariat, where Vijayan called a General Education Department official in front of him and discussed the matter. Vijayan then told the complainant that a bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh had to be paid to the officials.

On May 31, a person claiming to be an official from the General Education Department at the Secretariat handed over a copy of the reappointment order to the complainant. He also stated that there were expenses involved in speeding up the file processing and that the amount should be handed over to Vijayan, who was acting as the intermediary. This information was later reported by the complainant to the Vigilance authorities.