Oommen Chandy and Pinarayi Vijayan. File photoThiruvananthapuram: Ministers in the previous government and bureaucrats who presided over shady land deals and other controversial orders may be held accountable for their actions if a cabinet sub-committee has its way.
The panel is likely to report that some orders have cost the exchequer huge sums of money and recommend that the government recover the losses from those who are responsible for the actions.
The committee led by law and parliamentary affairs minister A.K. Balan has gone through 816 orders issued by the Oommen Chandy government in its last leg and found about 140 orders worthy of repealing.
The committee is also expected to seek amendments to many other orders. The report is expected to be submitted within two weeks, a member of the committee told Onmanorama.
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The report could be a tool may be a weapon in the hands of the Pinarayi Vijayan government to strike back at the United Democratic Front and deflect the bad press for irregular appointments across government departments and PSUs.
Most of the irregularities unearthed by the cabinet sub-committee happened in the revenue department, followed by education, health, food and finance departments during the previous government.
The committee also takes the UDF government to task for hiring lawyers to defend corruption-tainted ministers and paying them from the state exchequer.
"We have found so many irregularities, a majority of them concerning the revenue department," a member of the committee said on condition of anonymity. The committee had earlier found that 47 of the 127 orders by the Revenue Department were illegal.
"The secretaries concerned have submitted their notes after examining the legality of these decisions. Some of these orders should never have been passed. Some others have no legal backing. When you look at the files, it feels like the previous government was not bound by any law. There will be strict action on it, he said.
The report also lists out the granting of land to several religious organizations and the remedies to recover it.
The sub-committee had earlier pointed out large-scale corruption related to the upgrades of Arabic colleges to arts colleges.
The managements had amassed a fortune by appointing teachers to these colleges. At least 15 government-aided colleges were given grant in violation of norms.
The panel formed to look into the decisions taken by the lame-duck government includes finance T.M. Thomas Isaac, agriculture minister V.S. Sunil Kumar, water resources minister Mathew T. Thomas, transport Minister A.K. Saseendran and ports minister Ramachandran Kadannappally.
