While defending the LDF government's ordinance to amend the Lokayukta Act 1999, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had said that Kerala Lokayukta had such unquestionable powers that it can even unseat an elected government.
Former higher education minister K T Jaleel on Sunday hinted that it would be especially dangerous to bestow such sweeping powers on a person like the incumbent Lokayukta.
Jaleel did not mention the name but it was clear he was referring to Justice Cyriac P Joseph, the Lokayukta who had passed an adverse verdict that led to his resignation in April 2021. The Lokayukta had found that there was nepotism in the appointment of Jaleel's relative KT Abid as general manager of Minorities Development Finance Corporation.
“The Lokayukta appointment in Kerala was like the tragedy that would happen if the weapon trustingly handed over to Mahatma Gandhi landed in Godse's hands," Jaleel said in a Facebook post on Sunday. Opposition leader V D Satheesan put out a counter Facebook post saying that Cyriac Joseph was appointed by none other than Jaleel's “Godfather Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.”
The former higher education minister then made wild, unsubstantiated charges. "This Lord (Jaleel uses the reverential term used for judges sarcastically) who negotiated a vice chancellorship for the wife of his brother in return for saving a UDF leader from a sensational case would do anything for anyone if offered the right price," he said.
Jaleel later uploaded a High Court verdict delivered on January 25, 2005, which had exonerated Muslim League leader P K Kunhalikutty who had been accused of rape. Jaleel connected this court verdict to the appointment of Cyriac Joseph's brother's wife (Jancy James) as Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University in November 2004.
The January 15 verdict was delivered by the High Court two-judge bench of Justices B Subhashan Reddy and Cyriac Joseph; the verdict was written by Justice Reddy. This fact was pointed out by Satheesan, too. “The verdict was written by the then Chief Justice BS Reddy and Cyriac Joseph was just a member,” he said.
The charge was that Kunhalikutty had used his power and influence to protect himself from a sex scandal. He is alleged to have sexually abused Regina, a minor who came from a poor family. Regina herself had made the allegation through a private television channel. The High Court had said that no case had been made out against Kunhalikutty.
According to Jaleel, this was quid pro quo for the appointment. Satheesan wondered about the connection. “Had there been any allegation that the appointment of Jancy James as MG University Vice Chancellor was carried out flouting rules like in the case of the Kannur University Vice Chancellor,” he said and added: “During the term of Jancy James, Kerala's first woman VC, scandals like the illegal grant of marks were unheard of. It was Jancy James who became the founder VC of the Central University of Kerala.”
Jaleel said that after the failure of central agencies to find anything against the Pinarayi government, the UDF was using the Lokayukta as the new weapon to backstab the government. "The UDF is attempting to destabilise the LDF government by retaining this 'gentleman' in this position for years," Jaleel said.
He said that nowhere in India had Lokayukta such powers as in Kerala. "People will not care two hoots about this demand to perpetuate in Kerala a law that exists nowhere else in India," Jaleel said.
Satheesan said that Jaleel himself had said that he had favoured his relative. “This being so, he should introspect whether it was right for a former higher education minister to publicly humiliate the judge and his relatives,” Satheesan said. “By denigrating a Lokayukta picked by Pinarayi Vijayan, it was Jaleel who was backstabbing the Chief Minister,” he added. The opposition leader said that Jaleel was doing this because the Chief Minister had publicly chastised him for going after the Enforcement Directorate to trap Kunhalikutty.
