Kerala: IAS list stayed

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Division Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal in Kochi has stayed all the proceedings regarding the IAS conferment list prepared by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The interim order was issued on Tuesday in a petition filed by P N Premachandran, MD, Small Farmers Agri- Business Consortium, who was one among the short-listed candidates.

The Government of Kerala and the UPSC had almost finalised the list to confer IAS to M Girish Kumar, additional secretary, Finance and V Ratheesan, deputy development commissioner, DRDA, Palakkad. A file regarding this has been cleared by the Chief Minister. Premachandran, who was ranked fourth after the interview, approached the CAT challenging the entire selection procedure.

On Tuesday, a CAT Bench comprising Justice Thankappan and Justice George Joseph found that there was prima-facie evidence to prove the petitioner�s argument.

Premachandran�s cousel Sumathy Dhandapani argued that there had been manipulations in the selection procedure.

Girish, Ratheesan and K K Ramani, who is additional secretary-Home, were ranked one to three by gifting marks against norms, she argued.

Premachandran, by producing the documents sourced through an RTI petition, said that Ratheesan was given marks for good service entry and Ramani and Girish for new initiatives, though they were ineligible for the same. The CAT Bench observed that even if the list needed to be frozen for a year, they wanted a transparent procedure for deciding such important matters.

�In the light of the contention of the petitioner, we need to find out whether the allegations are true or not by perusing all the records, noted Justice Thankappan, Justice George Joseph.