Kerala Government Suspends Two IAS Officers for Misconduct

Two Kerala IAS Officers Suspended for Indiscipline: K Gopalakrishnan and N Prashanth Face Action Over Religious Group and Public Allegations

In a major development, two senior Indian Administrative Service officers, K Gopalakrishnan and N Prashanth have been suspended by the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government in Kerala citing disciplinary reasons. “All these have been alleged internal issues and religious controversies. Disciplinary suspension against them has been issued,” said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

K Gopalakrishnan, the Director of Industries and Commerce, is a 2013-batch IAS officer. N Prashanth, the Special Secretary in the Agriculture Development and Farmers’ Welfare Department, is from the 2007 IAS batch. Both officers are suspended in response to an investigation report submitted by Kerala’s Chief Secretary, Sarada Muraleedharan.

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Allegations Against K Gopalakrishnan
K Gopalakrishnan has been suspended over creating a controversial WhatsApp group named “Mallu Hindu Officers” last month. The group was targeted towards government officials based on religion. This caused a huge controversy over the state administration. The contested official later denied that his phone was hacked and stated he had nothing to do with forming the group. Investigations purportedly found no hacking evidence but found that the officer’s phone had been formatted, wiping off essential information that could have explained the situation.

Commenting on the issue, Thiruvananthapuram City Police Commissioner Sparjan Kumar opined that although it could not be ascertained with certainty whether the phone was hacked, the device was formatted at a time when this controversy had gained momentum also making suspicious. All these incidents culminated in Gopalakrishnan’s suspension on disciplinary grounds.

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N Prashanth’s Social Media Outburst
CollectorBro, as N Prashanth is popularly known, was suspended after he criticized a senior officer publicly. In fact, Prashanth had accused Additional Chief Secretary A Jayathilak of conspiring against him. He had done this in a Facebook post where Prashanth had accused Additional Chief Secretary A Jayathilak of fabricating news reports against him, particularly on missing files from the ‘Unnathi’ welfare initiative, which is geared towards Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Prashanth was the Unnathi CEO at the time when those files went missing.

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In his social media posting, Prashanth describes the officer as a “psychopath” and reveals that the reports, which are all false ones, were aimed at sabotaging the attempts of his efforts through calculated ways. The controversy surrounding this social media posting combined with constant media interaction by Prashanth draws in the government’s attention.

While suspended, Prashanth maintains his actions were justified. In an interview on television, he said again that the attacks were at particular individuals, not the government at all. “I feel that issuing false reports is not the intention of the government,” Prashanth said, and described himself as a “whistle-blower” who merely uncovered corruption.

Political Fallout
This has assumed political dimensions too as the suspension of N Prashanth has been matched by an allegation by former Fisheries minister Mercykutty Amma that he was in league with opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) in hatching a conspiracy to level false corruption charges against her.

As for the Kerala government, it has been claimed that indiscipline would not be tolerated. Earlier in his speech, Revenue Minister K Rajan had warned: The government would take strict action against officers working in the government for breach of discipline. Suspending Gopalakrishnan and Prashanth remind that the government does not digest any indiscipline within the administration.

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