Kasaragod: The state government has approved the pension of the former principal of Kasaragod Government College Dr Rama M, three months after she retired from service. Rama had locked horns with the ruling CPM's students' outfit SFI which led to her transfer from the college and the government initiating two departmental inquiries against her. Last week, she publicly accused the SFI and CPM's teachers' organisation of stonewalling the release of her pension despite the High Court of Kerala quashing the two inquiries against her on April 9. "I retired on March 31. I should have gotten my March salary and April's pension in the first week of April," she said.
On Monday, July 8, Govinda Pai Memorial Government College in Manjeshwar, from where she retired, got the government communique from the Directorate of Collegiate Education approving the pension. The order was dated July 5. "The order will now be sent to the Accountant General's office. I'll get the pension in 10 days," she said.
Dr Rama had a bitter fight with SFI over a defunct drinking water unit in her last months in service. The state government took up the cudgels for the student outfit and removed her from the post of principal of Kasaragod Government College on February 23. Later, she was transferred to Government Arts and Science College, Koduvally, 200km away in Kozhikode district, after she told an online portal that SFI members and a section of students committed atrocities, engaged in immoral physical relationships and abused drugs on the campus. She was later posted in the Manjeshwar College after the Kerala Administrative Tribunal ordered the government to post her in a nearby college as she was nearing retirement.
The High Court, however, came down hard on the government for invoking service rules against her for criticising SFI. "If she had raised unsubstantiated allegations against members of the SFI unit, the real aggrieved parties are the members of the SFI unit and not the government," said the judgment of the division bench.
