Perinthalmanna: Two Treasury Department officials were suspended on Thursday in the case where a ballot box went missing from the locker of the sub-treasury in Malappuram district.

The missing box was later found 22 km away in the office of the Joint Registrar (General) of Co-operative Societies of Malappuram.

Perinthalmanna Treasury Officer N Sathish Kumar and Senior Accountant S Rajeev were suspended.

District Collector V R Premkumar had on Tuesday issued show-cause notices to six employees of Malappuram Cooperative Joint Registrar Office and Perinthalmanna Sub-treasury.

The box was misplaced amidst a poll litigation over the result of the Perinthalmanna legislative assembly. The box contained special postal ballots. It is still not known if it was misplaced or taken away by vested interests.

The special postal ballots were kept in two iron boxes at the sub-treasury at Perinthalmanna town. The shocking discovery was made when the officers arrived to hold an inspection prior to the submission of the ballots in the Kerala High Court in the election petition over the result of the last Assembly poll in 2021.

A directive that the special ballots and records that are under dispute should be produced in the High Court before Tuesday 5 pm had been received earlier. Subsequently, an inspection of the Perinthalmanna sub-treasury’s locker was made at 7.15 am on Monday in the presence of the representatives of the political parties and one box was found missing. A search was immediately launched. During the search, another box containing the records of the Perinthalmanna block panchayat election was found.