The inquiry report on the proposed Lionel Messi visit to Kerala indicts former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and former Chief Secretary A Jayatilak for dumping constitutionally mandated rules and procedures to fast-track an event that did not even have a formal commitment from the Argentine Football Association.

The inquiry done by Sports Department Special Secretary N Prasanth had unearthed records that show how the former Chief Minister had gone out of his way to favour a private company, Reporter Broadcasting Corporation (RBC).

The hasty handover of the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium at Kaloor to the RBC is a telling example. The decision to waive off the security deposit, rent, taxes and other charges, worth over ₹5 crore, for the company had the Chief Minister's official sanction.

The stadium was made available to the private company for construction works without final confirmation of the match, official FIFA/AIFF (All India Football Federation) match registration, prior approval of the Law and Finance Departments, and without even insurance and bank guarantee provisions for recovery of damages as mandated in the country's law. The stated objective was to redo the stadium to match international standards.

"There is clear evidence of a conscious attempt to circumvent the rules," the inquiry report says. It further notes that "High-level review meetings chaired by the Hon'ble Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary, or committees constituted pursuant thereto, are not legally capable of validating such fundamental defects and procedural lapses arising from non-compliance with the constitutional file procedures".

The report was particularly critical of the then Chief Secretary's leadership role in letting the state government play second fiddle to a private company. "The large-scale deployment, under the leadership of the Chief Secretary, of government machinery and IAS officers for a private commercial venture without ensuring any of the safeguards required under the rules constitutes a grave institutional failure of supervision at the highest level of the Secretariat indicating pre-planned connivance or plain ignorance of the basic rules that govern the secretariat process," the report says.

The report says that the Chief Secretary is "not merely an officer who convenes meetings". "When a matter involving Sports, Finance, Law, Home, Police, Fire Force, Health, Revenue, Local Administration/GCDA, KSEB, the District Administration, Central Government clearances, foreign remittances, a public stadium and international contracts came under State-level coordination led by the Chief Secretary, the Chief Secretary had a specific responsibility to ensure that the Rules of Business are complied with, Finance/Law scrutiny had been completed, AFA had given its final consent, FIFA/AIFF approval had been obtained, ensure that the sponsor had been selected transparently, and ensure that Government liability had been excluded and public-asset safeguards had been secured," the report says.

It says "it was not an ordinary failure of coordination" if the state machinery was activated without such documentary foundation.

The report wants the leadership-level failure to be included as a principal charge in the proposed departmental inquiry and responsibility fixed accordingly.