Years after Kerala graft trial, a political appointment brings together convict, petitioner, judge

A politician who served a jail sentence in a corruption case received a cabinet-rank posting in the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front government in Kerala last week. The person who fought the case against him is chairman of the State Administrative Reforms Commission, also a cabinet-rank post, in the same government. And the judge who convicted the politician is now governor of the state.

This odd situation has come about with the Kerala government’s decision to appoint 82-year-old Kerala Congress (B) leader R Balakrishna Pillai as chairman of the state’s Forward Community Welfare Board.

In 2011, the Supreme Court had found Pillai guilty of causing losses to the Kerala State Electricity Board by awarding contracts at inflated rates for the construction of the Idamalayar dam in Idukki district, and had sentenced him to a year in jail. Pillai was the state’s power minister at the time the contracts were awarded.

The person who fought the case against Pillai then was VS Achuthanandan, veteran leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), while one of the judges who sent Pillai to jail was P Sathasivam, now the state’s governor.

But aside from the coincidence of it all, Pillai’s appointment has also given rise to questions about the state government’s priorities regarding backward and forward communities, and its stand on corruption.

‘Why the disparity?’

Dalit activist Sunny M Kapikad told Scroll.in that heads of backward community boards in Kerala do not enjoy cabinet rank while the Forward Community Board chairman does. He added that this shows where the government’s priorities lie. “To be in power, Communists and the Congress require the forward communities’ support and they never fail to appease these sections whenever it is required,” he said.

An official with the State Scheduled Caste / Tribe Welfare Board confirmed that their chairman does not enjoy cabinet rank.

Kapikad said, “When the majority of backward communities are facing negligence, these politicians put forward theories that a large number of forward community members are struggling to ‘exist’.” He added that if a study were to be conducted, the myth of the struggling majority would be busted.

Earlier this month, Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran had said that Brahmins were among Kerala’s homeless and that they had borne the brunt of the state’s land reforms. He also reiterated that the ruling party was in favour of reservation based on economic conditions rather than caste.

Rupesh Kumar, a Dalit activist and documentary film-maker, accused politicians of bowing to upper-caste supremacy. “There is no surprise in knowing that the SC/ST [Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe] commission chairman is neglected without a cabinet rank when his counterpart in the forward community [body] has been granted the same,” he said, adding that one should not expect present-day Left parties in Kerala and India to ensure social justice for all.

Pillai’s response

Responding to the controversy over his appointment, Pillai said the government had given him the responsibility as he was a senior politician. He had headed the Forward Community Board in the previous Congress-led United Democratic Front government too, and the position had carried cabinet rank then as well. He said he did not know why the government had not extended the same cabinet rank to the chairman of the Scheduled Caste / Schedule Tribe commission.

Pillai told mediapersons the cabinet rank would not cost the state exchequer much as he would not be taking a salary, nor would he be availing of telephone and other facilities. “I will be needing only four people, three of whom are currently already employed with the state government,” he added.

Pillai had switched to the Left Democratic Front ahead of Assembly elections in the state last year. Kanam Rajendran, state secretary of the Communist Party of India, a partner in the coalition, said Pillai and his party had then been promised the same benefits they had enjoyed with the Congress-led government.

Government’s take

Rejecting the allegation that the government was appeasing certain communities, MA Baby, a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), told Scroll.in, “Be it forward or backward communities, the government is duty-bound to take care of the welfare and genuine interests of all sections of society, irrespective of caste, creed, religion and region.”

Baby put the cabinet rank for Pillai down to the politician’s seniority. “Pillai is a very senior politician. That could be the only reason for the present decision,” he said.

He added that when the cabinet was formed, there was no assessment by the media as to how many have to be inducted from each community.

Corruption question

Aside from the controversy over the cabinet-rank posting, the appointment of a leader convicted of corruption could also be damaging to the state government – especially since the Left Democratic Front had come to power last year on the promise of rooting out corruption and providing clean governance.

Political observer KM Shajahan said the Left in the state had lost its integrity. “The appointment of Pillai, who has served a jail term on corruption charges, with a cabinet rank exposes how immoral the Communists are in Kerala,” Shajahan told Scroll.in. “Communists talk and act like the bourgeois nowadays.”

It was the same Communist Party of India (Marxist) that had pursued a legal battle against Pillai after the Idamalayar dam scandal broke in 1982 – although it had taken close to 10 years for the case to go to court. A trial court had convicted Pillai, but the Kerala High Court had later acquitted him. Achuthanandan had appealed against the acquittal in the Supreme Court.

Their efforts had paid off when an apex court bench of justices P Sathasivam and BS Chauhan had reversed the High Court order and convicted Pillai of corruption in 2011. It had held him guilty of being part of a conspiracy that had caused a loss of over Rs 2 crores to the state electricity board in the awarding of contracts for the dam project. Pillai was sent to jail for a year. But a remission (sentence reduction) ensured he was released before the completion of his term.

Scroll.in’s email request to Achuthanandan’s office for comment on Pillai’s appointment did not receive a response.