CAT stays removal of Dr B Ashok from post of principal secretary

KOCHI: The state government has suffered a setback over the removal of Dr B Ashok from the post of principal secretary of the agriculture department to the Kerala Transport Development Finance Corporation (KTDFC) as chairman. The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has stayed the removal of Dr B Ashok from the post of principal secretary. B Ashok had clarified before the tribunal that his removal was a retaliatory action.

When he was appointed as the chairman of the local government reforms commission earlier, he had approached the court and obtained an order against the government and continued as the principal secretary of the agriculture department. The present transfer is also in a similar manner. He did not take up the newly-acquired CMD post of the KTDFC as he was preparing for legal action. The government replaced Ashok with Tinku Biswal and she had assumed the charge of principal secretary of the agriculture department and agricultural production commissioner. Tinku Biswal also holds the post of principal secretary of the transport department. KTDFC is a firm the same department.

The controversy deepened when a World Bank email linked to the fund diversion issue was leaked to the media. Following media reports about the diversion of funds from the Kera project, the agriculture department had conducted an investigation on the instructions of the chief minister's Office. Dr B Ashok was in charge of the investigation. Ashok in his report pointed that the email account was accessible to only four senior officials in the agriculture department, but none of them had shared it with the media. He concluded that if it was accessed and leaked by someone else, it would amount to an offence under the IT Act. Ashok concluded that the email leak was probably from the CMO itself. He submitted the report through agriculture minister to chief secretary, who in turn passed it to chief minister. Ashok was transferred out of agriculture department soon after this.