Suspended controversial IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman has been reinstated.
New Delhi: The Kerala Left Front government’s decision to reinstate suspended controversial IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman in the time of coronavirus has baffled many in the state. Sriram stands accused of driving a car at breakneck speed in drunken stupor and fatally knocking down a journalist in state capital Thiruvananthapuram well past midnight on 3 August last year. An NRI lady friend of the officer was in the car at the time of the accident. The journalist, Siraj daily bureau chief K.M. Basheer, who was riding a bike, died on the spot. Though a formal announcement is yet to come, it is confirmed that Venkitaraman has been appointed joint secretary in the health department. When asked about the appointment during his daily briefing on the corona virus outbreak, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Monday that the state government “will not back anyone who had done any wrong even if he was government officer”. The case is before a court now, Vijayan said, adding there was no question of protecting wrongdoers.
The official’s suspension had been extended twice. A committee headed by state Chief Secretary had earlier recommended revoking Sriram’s suspension on the ground that the police had not filed the charge sheet even six months after the accident. Later on 1 February 2020 the police filed the charge sheet before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court. The Kerala Union of Working Journalists which was in the forefront for justice to Basheer has demanded scrapping of the appointment. “The whole society knows how Venkitaraman tried to wriggle out of the case soon after the accident. Basheer’s death was due to drunken driving of a responsible officer of the state government,” KUWJ said in a matter of fact statement. Basheer’s family also expressed anguish and shock over the decision. “The officer claimed that he had retrograde amnesia (following the accident), but now he has been appointed to the health ministry itself. This is to derail the investigation,” Basheer’s brother K Abdur Rahuman had told media persons. Sadly, all these voices have been drowned in the avalanche of corona virus news, real and fake.
Ironically, the story of IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman is one that of hero turns villain. Not long ago, Sriram was the toast of Kerala and a thorn in the flesh of the state CPM leadership. It was during his stint as sub-collector in Devikulam, in the high ranges of Munnar, that Sriram came face to face with the muscle power of the local CPM leadership, which had the blessings of none other than the Chief Minister himself. Sriram’s eviction drive against illegal encroachment of government land, mostly at the behest of CPM-backed land mafia, gave him the image of a dare-devil upright officer. His fan following in the social media was phenomenal with many hailing him as a ‘brave officer’ ready to go the extra mile to ensure justice. But it was the pulling down of a 30-feet tall metal cross erected on encroached land in a god-forsaken place called Pappathicholamedu in the highranges of Idukki district that made CPM Chief Minister’s blood boil and led to the eventual shunting of Sriram from Idukki. The cross, erected under the guise of ‘spiritual tourism’ atop a hilly terrain, was brought down with the help of bulldozers on the morning of 21 April 2017. It was set up on a 30-acre land allegedly encroached by a group of people calling itself ‘Spirit of Jesus’, an outfit rejected by the mainstream Church.
A fuming CM said the government viewed the matter very seriously. “A majority of people in the state are those with a strong belief in the cross. So the government had to be informed before laying hands on it (cross),” Vijayan had said at that time. One of his Cabinet colleagues and Idukki strongman M M Mani wanted the sub-collector to be “banished to Oolampara”, well-known mental asylum in Kerala. Mani also accused Sriram of conspiring with the RSS to pull down a cross and even equated the act to that of the demolition of Babri Masjid. Interestingly, among those who hold land illegally in the district spotted by Sriram was one Lijesh Lambodaran, the son of M M Lambodaran, who happens to be the brother of the very same M M Mani, trusted aide of CM Vijayan! However, much to the surprise of the Chief Minister and his party, the razing of the cross did not elicit any adverse response from the Christian community. It became clear that CPM was drumming up for minority votes. That later in 2018, the CPM duality was exposed when the very same CM took a different stand on a ‘religious issue’ relating to another majority community, the Sabrimala,, which too equally boomeranged is another issue altogether. The other communist party, CPI, which controls the revenue department, saw it as an opportunity to hit out against the Big Brother. Its minister vowed to continue with Sriram and demolition. The euphoria lasted only a few months. On 6 July 2017, a day after the Kerala High Court upheld the revenue authorities’ order to recover 22 cents of land illegally occupied by a resort in Munnar, Sriram Venkitaraman was shunted out. So, when the same Sriram got into the binge accident, there was virtual jubilation among CPM rank and file. Minister Mani clapped hands and posed for photographers. Party spokespersons told TV anchors day after day: “Didn’t we tell you, he (Sriram) was a fraud?” Whenever the anchors tried to point out that the Pinarayi police was trying to “save” Sriram – police did not bother to take him for blood test immediately after the accident, nor did they file an FIR — it was brushed aside saying that their government would bring him to the books. There is no question of Sriram Venkitaraman going scot free, they used to chant in unison. Now comrades and the general public are equally perplexed as to what prompted the Chief Minister to reinstate the errant IAS officer who, otherwise, has a reputation for efficiency. His posting is in the health ministry. Is it the corona effect?