In a two-part series, Flight of Favour, Onmanorama delves into the questionable rise of veteran CPM leader VS Achuthanandan's son V A Arunkumar at IHRD.

V A Arunkumar — son of veteran communist leader and anti-corruption crusader V S Achuthanandan — prepared well in advance for the interview for the post of Director of the Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD), held on Wednesday (October 9). Ten months ago, as Director in charge of the institute, he tailored the eligibility criteria to fit his own qualifications.

Since January 1997, when he joined IHRD as Assistant Director and later climbed the ranks to Joint Director and Additional Director in 2016, successive LDF governments have repeatedly modified the eligibility requirements to favour his career advancement.

The latest criterion added for the post of IHRD Director that diluted the eligibility was 'seven years of experience in the cadre of Additional Director under IHRD service' — a requirement that only he met. The Kerala government's IHRD, a quasi-autonomous institute, is a mammoth educational entity that runs 9 engineering colleges, nine polytechnics, 50 colleges of applied science affiliated with four universities, 16 technical higher secondary schools, two model finishing schools, two regional centres offering Post Graduate Diplomas in Computer Applications, and seven extension centres. However, Arunkumar's postings and promotions have consistently attracted negative attention for IHRD.

Save University Campaign Committee (SUCC), a whistle-blower organisation, on Tuesday, wrote to the Chief Minister to call off Wednesday's interview at Mascot Hotel in Thiruvananthapuram because of tampering with the eligibility criteria, but the request was ignored. There were 10 candidates, but only six, including Arunkumar, attended the interview for the post that is in the same pay grade as that of the state government's Director of Technical Education. The other five candidates were principals and senior professors serving in various engineering colleges under IHRD.

Arunkumar did not respond to calls or text messages over the past two days, nor did he reply to a set of questions emailed to him. However, on Wednesday, he told Malayala Manorama that the allegations did not warrant a response, adding that he had served as the Additional Director of IHRD for the past 14 years.

Conflict of interest
One of the main allegations against Arunkumar is that he does not have teaching or research experience, a criterion for all the posts he held.

Yet, on June 3, 2023, the Department of Higher Education appointed Arunkumar as the Director in charge "till a Director is appointed". In November 2023, Arunkumar wrote to the government to amend the rules of appointment for the post of director. Ignoring the evident conflict of interest, the government amended the rules on December 13, 2023. The new qualifications read: i) a postgraduate degree in engineering/technology (PhD is desirable) with 15 years of teaching experience in engineering colleges, including at least three years of administrative experience at the level of professor or principal OR ii) a postgraduate degree in engineering/technology (PhD is desirable) with 10 years of teaching experience in engineering colleges, including at least three years of administrative experience at the level of professor or principal, and five years of industrial experience is essential OR iii) seven years of experience in the cadre of additional directors or principals of engineering colleges under IHRD service (Arunkumar's criterion).

This was a tricky addition. The first two criteria emphasised educational qualifications, teaching experience at the professor's level, or industrial and administrative experiences. However, the third one decides the human resource pool from which the director has to be selected. For every post, IHRD's hiring policy has a combination of qualifications 'and' a specific HR pool from which the appointment must be made. IHRD calls the HR pool the 'method of appointment.' "The government's amendment of IHRD rules changed the 'and' to 'or,' effectively removing the qualification requirements and leaving only the pool from which the Director could be selected," said R S Sasikumar, chairman of the Save University Campaign Committee, a whistleblower organisation. "The government has done this before for Arunkumar and conveniently ignored the appointment method for him, too," he said.

In February, Prof Vinu Thomas, the academic Dean at APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and faculty member at IHRD, approached the high court challenging Arunkumar's appointment as director-in-charge and the government's decision to "arbitrarily and illegally" amend rules to favour the son of former Chief Minister Achuthanandan. After repeated adjournments, the "urgent" writ petition is still pending before the Bench of Justice Ziyad Rahman AA.

How he became Additional Director
Till 2010, IHRD had only one post of Additional Director. In September 2010, it notified the post calling for applications from candidates with 12 years of teaching experience in colleges, including three years of administrative experience at the level of professor/ principal of colleges under IHRD.

The method of selection was professors, principals of engineering colleges or joint directors in IHRD. In 2011, at the fag end of Achuthanandan's tenure, IHRD created two extra posts of Additional Directors without the approval of the government. (Posts above the Deputy Director's pay scale require government approval). Officially, the extra posts were created because of work overload. However, the talk in the corridors of IHRD suggested that the real reason was to accommodate two other senior officials who were actually eligible for the post of Additional Director, but creating extra posts alone won't make Arunkumar eligible for the post.

The government also deleted the qualification and retained only the 'method of appointment' as the criterion for appointment, said the then Principal Secretary of Higher Education K M Abraham in a statement to a sub-committee of the Legislative Assembly on December 2, 2011, when the Congress-led UDF was heading the government. (Abraham, now retired, is Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's Chief Principal Secretary and enjoys Cabinet rank.)

"If the qualification were not deleted, Arunkumar would not have been able to apply for the post or be appointed as the Additional Director of IHRD," Abraham told the committee. Five candidates, including Arunkumar, attended the interview for the post of Additional Director (Administration & Planning). He was the only candidate without a PhD, the bureaucrat noted.

Arunkumar topped the rank list, which included a professor, too. In 2014, the UDF government cancelled the two extra posts of additional directors that were created without approval, a decision that would have put two Additional Directors out of the job. "But the IHRD Executive Committee decided that all three can continue working as additional directors without the designation of additional directors," said a principal of an IHRD College of Engineering.

The absurd situation continued till Devasiya, one of the Additional Directors, retired in 2015, and P Sureshkumar, the other Additional Director, was appointed as Director of IHRD on February 29, 2016. Since then, Arunkumar was firmly seated in the Additional Director's post till he was made the Director in charge on June 3, 2023, after Sureshkumar's tenure ended. Now, Arunkumar once again adjusted the eligibility criteria to claim the Director's post, on the strength of the Additional Director's post alone.

The interview was conducted by Higher Education Principal Secretary Ishita Roy, Digital University Kerala Vice-Chancellor Saji Gopinath, former CUSAT Vice-Chancellor P G Sankaran, Director of Technical Education Shalij P R, and Higher Education Additional Secretary Ajayan C. Higher education watchers, including a Vice-Chancellor, raised their eyebrows because of the presence of an additional secretary to select the Director of IHRD. "Except as CPM's point person, he has no role there," said Sasikumar.

The Kerala government's dilution of the eligibility criteria for the Director's post also makes a mockery of the regulations set by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the regulatory body for technical education in India. According to the AICTE's regulations published on March 1, 2019, candidates applying for the post of Director of the technical institute should have: i) a PhD degree and First Class at either bachelor's or Master's level in the relevant branch; ii) successfully guided at least two PhD scholars and eight research publications; and iii) minimum 15 years of experience in teaching/ research/ industry, including at least three years as a professor. Arunkumar does not meet the last two criteria. The regulations are binding on all technical institutions in India.
(Read Part 2: Coirfed service as teaching experience? Even HC remark didn't break Arunkumar's IHRD stint.)