No respite, Kerala IAS officer N Prasanth's suspension extended for six months

Thiruvananthapuram, May 7 There seems to be no respite for the now-suspended IAS officer N. Prasanth, as the weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday decided to extend his suspension for another six months.

The 2007-batch IAS officer was suspended in November last year after he made serious allegations against senior bureaucrats, including Additional Chief Secretary A. Jayathilak (1991-batch), IAS officer K. Gopalakrishnan (2013-batch), and the recently retired Chief Secretary Muraleedharan.

Incidentally, Wednesday was the first cabinet meeting that Jayathilak attended after taking over from Muraleedharan on April 30.

Prasanth, while being the Kozhikode district collector, had won the hearts of many through his actions and is one who has a massive following on social media.

The controversy over his suspension in November last year was centred around an enquiry report allegedly prepared by Jayathilak, which accused Prasanth of being responsible for missing documents linked to the Unnathi project during his tenure as CEO, irregularities in his attendance records, and violations of service conduct, including making derogatory social media posts.

However, Prasanth has maintained that the case against him has been built on unreliable digital evidence and lacks procedural and legal merit.

He also targeted Jayathilak and Gopalakrishnan for his suspension.

Another action of Prasanth which has irked the higher-ups is his frequent statements through his social media page, and even the personal hearing that he had with Muraleedharan was also made public by him.

His demand for live streaming of his hearing with Muraleedharan was turned down, and after his hearing was over, he wrote in his social media, “I brought to their attention my promotion which has been hanging fire since 2022, as the rule states promotion issues should be settled in a matter of six months. I want to get my promotion, and each file should not turn out to be one where one’s life is at stake,” he said.

“To initiate action against the FB post I made is foolhardy and against the All India Service rules, and to commence another probe should not be done,” he added.

“A case should be registered against Jayathilak, Gopalakrishnan and Mathurbhumi newspaper for conspiring against me and for making fake documents.

“The rule of law is also applicable to the Government, and it should not behave in a manner that those aggrieved can resort to legal redress. This does not augur well for governance. Till now, I have not filed any case against the government, and please do not open an avenue for that,” he added.

“My appeal is that there need be no hurry to revoke my suspension without addressing all these issues which I have raised,” wrote Prasanth.

Now with the government extending his suspension by another six months, all eyes are on what his next move would be, as he has already pointed out that he is not very particular that he should be an IAS officer till he retires.

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