Kochi: The central intelligence agencies are monitoring the functioning of a "high-level IT team" constituted in the Kerala High Court through direct intervention of former IT secretary and gold smuggling case accused M Sivasankar.
The central agencies have received instructions to carry out a preliminary probe to find out whether there has been any information leak from the high court after the setting up of the IT team.
While the computerization work in other high courts has been carried out by the central government-run National Informatics Centre (NIC), here five persons were appointed on contract on a salary of Rs 60,000 to Rs 1 lakh. The central agencies have gathered evidence regarding Sivasankar's intervention in these appointments.
He reportedly intervened in the same fashion as he did in Space Park for getting employment for Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the gold smuggling case. The three-member interview board reportedly comprised a judicial officer, the CEO of the state government's IT Parks and the Director of International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS).
Sivasankar, in his capacity as the IT secretary, was present in the meetings held on February 22 and May 11, 2018 ahead of the appointments to the team. The five persons were appointed on January 14, 2019.
The appointments made bypassing the NIC were also reported by Intelligence Bureau (IB ) to their higher-ups in the same month itself.
It is said Sivasankar visited the high court again on March 19 to arrange seats for them at crucial places in the IT wing.
