Kerala ex-CM’s son found guilty of violating rules

Kerala’s Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has found irregularities in the appointment and quick promotions of former Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan’s son VA Arun Kumar to a top post in the Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD) in a span of 12 years.
The VACB probe team confirms the findings of the Assembly Committee, which submitted its report on March 8, 2012, that Kumar doctored documents to violate norms of the IHRD, which runs several engineering colleges in Kerala, to become its additional director.
The Kerala High Court had in September asked the VACB to expedite the probe into the corruption charges against the nonagenarian Communist leader and his son and submit a report to the court within six months. The team submitted this report to the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Saturday.
Kumar, who acquired a post-graduation in computer applications from a government-aided private college under the management quota, became the managing director of a state-run corporation at a young age and later became the joint director of the IHRD against prescribed norms.
The qualifications originally asked for was a master’s degree in engineering and eight years of teaching experience. It was changed to suit Kumar’s qualifications and he made a false claim to the teaching experience to become the associate director.
The government created two more positions to accommodate him when his father was the chief minister and he was also appointed as the director of the newly-created Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Academy under the IT department directly controlled by his father.
VD Satheeshan, who headed the Assembly panel, said he was not satisfied with the way the government handled its report and expressed displeasure at the “soft-pedalling” of investigations into the allegations involving the father and the son.
“Instead of taking action on the report, the government sat on it doing nothing for quite long. This is the plight of all corruption charges against Achuthanandan and his son,” said Satheeshan who is now a secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge of Tamil Nadu.

Kumar also managed to get a registration for a PhD at the University of Kerala to protect his position as all other directors hold a PhD and to make his claim to the a higher position. However, Kerala High Court directed the university authorities to cancel his registration as he did not have the mandatory qualifications.
The opposition raised 11 allegations of corruption and nepotism against Achuthanandan when he was the chief minister, most of them against Arun Kumar, and they were under investigation. They include an “unholy nexus” with the alleged power broker CG Nandakumar.
Kumar was also accused of receiving money from the sandalwood mafia and making attempts to sabotage a Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) probe into irregularities in the operations of lotteries licensed by other states.
“I fail to understand why the investigations are progressing at a snail’s pace or not making any headway and who are the interested parties that helping them. I’m not at all satisfied,” said Satheeshan. “No action has been taken against him despite our findings.”
The VACB had questioned Kumar for more than five hours for a second time in a month in July in connection with IHRD. Charges against him include foreign trips he had undertaken while serving as the managing director of the Kerala State Cooperative Coir Marketing Federation Ltd during the Left Democratic Front’s previous term.
The special seven-member committee of the Kerala assembly probed four allegations, the appointment of Kumar as director of the ICT Academy; his appointment as director of the Model Finishing School and the financial irregularities of the Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE) and found the first and third to be true.