Thiruvananthapuram: The Joint Legislature
panel, that probed allegations against Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan`s son, has found there was "serious misuse of
power, favouritism and gross irregularities" in his
appointment to key posts in the state HRD Institute when the
CPI-M veteran was the Chief Minister.
The report, tabled in the Assembly today, found
Achuthanandan and the then Education Minister M A Baby had
bent rules to get postings for V A Arun Kumar as IHRD Joint
Director, Additional Director and later as ICT Academy
Director.
The tabling of the report, drawn up by the panel chaired
by Congress MLA V D Satheesan, was marred with Opposition LDF
members demanding that their dissent note be appended to the
report which they said was `unilateral.`
However, quoting rules of procedure, the ruling benches
argued rules and precedents clearly showed any dissenting note
should not be part of the final report of legislature
committees.
The panel chairman V D Satheesan said the rules
stipulated that a legislature committee was to been seen as an
entity and if there was any dissent, a decision should be
taken through voting and the exercise was completed at a
committee meeting before the finalisation of draft.
Speaker G Karthikeyan then ruled that the decision of the
panel chairman not to append the dissent note with the report
was "justifiable and in accordance with precedents" in the
assembly. If the dissent note was allowed to be added to the
report, it would weaken the impact of the findings, he said.
The Speaker, however, allowed the four Opposition members
in the panel to table their note separately in the House.
On the charge that the report`s findings were leaked to
the press before tabling it in the assembly, he ruled it would
amount to breach of privilege and contempt of the House.
PTI
