Sunday 21 June 2020

WE (THE PEOPLE) VS THEM (THE PUBLIC SERVANTS)


A few days back I received two messages through WhatsApp from an activist friend of mine.  One of them was about the ordinary folks’ penchant for cheap stuff, even in the matter of food stuffs which may be injurious to their health. He was mentioning specifically about coconut oil. He has a coconut farm and he says that it costs Rs 250/- to market a kilogram of pure coconut oil. He laments that people would prefer to buy adulterated coconut oil at Rs 225/- per kg and ruin their health than go for the pure variety which was good for health.

I recollected my own intervention in the matter of 6 lakh kgs of pepper that had been ordered to be burnt by the Food Safety Commissioner (FSC) of Kerala because it had been colored with mineral oil and polished with paraffin wax, both known to be cancerogenous. Almost four years later it was reported that the pepper was to be cleaned under the supervision of the Food Safety Commissioner.

On pursuing under the Right to Information Act, the following facts were revealed. One, the order for cleaning the adulterated pepper had been given by a single judge bench of the Kerala High Court. Two, the FSC had identified a caffeine processing plant in Palakkad as the only facility for this cleaning. Three, the cleaning was done by washing with detergent followed by rinsing with clean water.

The information not provided include, the copies of test results that made the FSC order the burning of 6 lakh kgs of pepper in the first place and the test results after the cleaning.

The last that was heard about the cleaned pepper was that it was found unsuitable for export and hence would be sold in the local market itself.

This episode can be closed with two questions: one, does pepper that is unfit for consumption by foreigners become fit for consumption by locals? Two, can the spices be removed from pickled vegetables by washing with detergent and rinsing with clean water?

Coming to the second question, which should rightly be answered by the judge of the Kerala High Court who ordered the cleaning of the pepper, there is another case that comes to mind.

In the matter of the Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Ltd (Coca Cola Company, for short) which was accused of overdrawing the underground water at Plachimada, a single judge bench of Kerala High Court had ruled that the company could not overdraw ground water as it would lead to water scarcity in the neighborhood. A division bench of the same high court later ruled in favor of the company stating that the right of a company to draw water from its property even for commercial uses is the same as the right of an individual to draw water from his property for personal consumption.

Back to my activist friend and his second message.

Here he has openly warned other activists from interfering with illegal mining mafia saying that they should be prepared for being framed in false cases by the police working in nexus with such mafia as well as being assaulted by the goons of such mafia while the police looked the other way.

Here also I have my own experience to narrate.
It happened more than decade back. Somebody from the outskirts of my town informed of an illegal quarry working in his neighborhood causing damages to the houses there and pollution too. He had informed me that he had complained to the local Kasaba Police and to the Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO). After visiting the site with him I pursued a few applications under the RTI Act.

The RDO informed me that the matter had been reported to the Mining and Geology Office in the district. This office informed me that their officials had visited the site and, finding the quarrying illegal, had directed the police to take necessary action. The police informed me that they had never received any complaints.

As facts stood it was the responsibility of the Mining and Geology Department to prosecute the offenders. Even the RDO could have punished them within his powers.

However, even though no one was learnt to have been punished, the quarrying had been stopped eventually. I too had then got a veiled threat from the mafia which I could only dismiss with the contempt it deserved.

Activists, I must say, are among the best citizens in any democracy. Not just because I consider myself to be one. Knowledgeable people have said that alert citizens are essential for the success of any democracy. Also, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. So, it comes as no surprise that activists are persona non grata for our so-called public servants who have continued to live in the inherited dream world of our colonial past. But the misfortune is that it is not only activists who are kababi ki haddi for our public servants. Just to prove this point here is the story of Krisna, a farm laborer, on social security pension, who got bitten by a stray dog and his fight for being compensated.

Krisna was sitting in front of his hut when a stray dog rushed in and gave a bite. He was rushed to the District Hospital where they did not have the anti-rabies serum for injection. He went to the medical college where they got him to buy the serum from a private pharmacy for about Rs 14,000/-.

On the advice of a friendly neighborhood activist (FNA) he sent a demand for reimbursement of the cost of medicine to the office of State’s Health Minister. Soon he got an intimation that the claim had been forwarded to the District Medical Officer (DMO) for necessary action. He was glad that he would soon receive the reimbursement. But he was disappointed as there was no response from the DMO’s office.

Guided by the FNA, he applied under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to the DMO’s office to find out what action had been taken on the letter from the Health Minister’s office. To his horror he was informed that they had not received any such letter.

He submitted an appeal to the DMO’s office. They wrote back asking him to provide a copy of his application and the reply by their Public Information Officer. Since these documents were available in their office, Krisna submitted the next appeal to the State’s Information Commission. This was dismissed. Arbitrarily, no doubt.

Krisna then applied under the RTI Act to the minister’s office, seeking to know the details of the posting of the letter to the DMO’s office and also of any reply received from the latter. No response was received. A complaint to the Information Commission was also arbitrarily dismissed.

Persevering, with the support of the FNA of course, Krisna complained to the District Collector. It got routed to the DMO, District Hospital and finally to the Medical College, with nothing useful coming out of the effort.

It was around that time that the then Chief Minister, Ommen Chandy, decided to hold one of his Public Contact Programs in the district. The modus operandi was the citizens could submit their complaints or applications to the District Collector, who in turn would route them to the concerned public servants. On the day of the Contact Program all public authorities would set up their stalls and through these stalls the replies to the complaints would be distributed. Those who were not satisfied with the reply could meet the CM.

Krisna’s complaint was routed to the Tehsildar and he was told to contact their office the next working day. Not knowing what to do he decided to meet the CM. He did not get the opportunity. The next day’s media reports announced how the CM left the venue late at night after seeing the last citizen who had wanted to meet him.

Krisna went to the Tehsildar’s office 4-5 times spread over two weeks before he got fed up.

There is quote that goes ‘fortune favors the brave’. May be, it also favors also the persistent.

On a PIL, against the apathy of the government to control stray dog menace, the apex court appointed a one-man judicial committee to inquire into the menace and to suggest compensation to the victims.

Krisna approached the Committee through an NGO. Two years later, and 7 years after his initial application to the Health Minister, the Municipality paid him about Rs 47,000/- on the direction of the Committee.

Tailpiece: This is one of the rare judicial committees whose reports have been acted upon. This committee which was constituted as per order dated 05/04/2016 in IA 4/2015 in WP (C) 599/2015, was known to be functional even as on 20/04/2019. Since there are no media reports on the activities of the Committee it is not known whether it is continuing even now or not. But there are plenty of stray dog bite cases being reported in the media.


29/05/2020


P M Ravindran; raviforjustice@gmail.com

KOLLUNNA RAAJAAVINU THINNUNNA MANTHRI


The above quip, For the king who kills, The minister who eats, conveys the modus operandi of a team that commits a crime and leaves no trace of it. Such a crime manifested in Kerala during the Covid lockdown. Kerala is the only State where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is in power. There have been rave reviews, even at the international level, on the way this government has managed the pandemic problem in the State. These are mainly the work of “embedded” journalists far removed from ground realities. Of course, the whole country is fighting Covid. Under these circumstances, the Sprinklr (no ‘e’) controversy has played out in Kerala.

Sprinklr is a Keralite-owned, US based company that claims to be an expert in data analysis. They approached the Government of Kerala and offered to help with the analysis of data of those affected by Covid and whose details were included in the data base of the government. It was a free of cost offer and on that count beyond reproach. But cyberspace has it that the cost of such data of even an individual varies from Rs 15,000/- to Rs 1,50,000/- among pharma companies. And the data with the State Government ran into a couple of lakhs.

The controversy erupted when a journalist asked the Chief Minister, during his then regular 6 p.m. briefings on the Covid situation, why a foreign firm had been entrusted this job and how the personal information was transferred to a private firm. The Chief Minister initially defended it on the irrelevant ground that it was free and there was no loss to the government. But soon he lost his cool and called off the briefing. The briefings stood cancelled for the next few days.

The briefings were resumed only after Secretary of the Information Technology Dept., of which the Chief Minister is in-charge, admitted that he was responsible for the deal in all its aspects and that he had not even deemed it necessary to approach the Law Department for advice. Of course, he must have been reassured that the Chief Minister would not permit his prosecution.

The matter reached the High Court of Kerala which pulled up the Government for failure to follow procedures and directed them to recall the data already uploaded to Sprinklr’s website and give it back to them after hiding the personal identifiers. A great decision indeed, for the layman. For those better informed about technology, it is stupid.

Meanwhile, the Government constituted a committee of two former bureaucrats to probe the matter. Rajeev Sadanand, a member of the committee, was Health Secretary during the Oommen Chandy government in 2012. The UDF Government had then ordered a study, the Kerala Health Observatory Baseline Study (KHOBS), to be done along with a Canadian firm, Population Health Research institute. The study was stopped when the opposition, then headed by Pinayari Vijayan of the CPI(M), alleged data leak.

When Pinayari Vijayan became Chief Minister in 2016, Rajeev Sadanand pushed the same study, with the same Canadian partners, under the name, Epidemiological Surveillance. This was also given up when it became a controversy. But not one to give up, Sadanand initiated a move to compile the health data of about 10 lakh citizens, with their permission, over a 10-year period. This project, KIRAN (Kerala Information on Residents-Arogyam Network) was to be executed with the help of the Achutha Menon Centre for Medical Science and Technology of Sri Chitra Institute, Thiruvananthapuram. But then, information leaked out that it was the directors of the Canadian company who were funding the survey. Questions asked had no responses.

Rajeev Sadanand is also under suspicion of trying to favor two medical colleges that had been denied permission by courts to admit students for their MBBS course. Need one say more where the report of this committee will lead to?

Cyberspace is rife with speculation regarding the involvement of the Chief Minister’s daughter, T. Veena, in the deal. She is the MD of Bangalore-based IT firm Exalogic Solutions Pvt. Ltd., with an investment of Rs 100 crore. This company does business in the same field as Sprinklr. Further indictment came when it was reported that in the registration documents of the company, the address of the owner is given as AKG Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, and the nominee is Kamala Vijayan, wife of Pinayari Vijayan; her address was given as that of Pinayari Vijayan’s house at Thalassery. Earlier, media reports stated that during the last nation-wide strike, the company had a regular working day when Kerala was under a lockdown.

As Chief Minister, Pinayari Vijayan has made many foreign trips to seek investment in Kerala, particularly from Non-Resident Keralites. This brings me to the case of Dr. Jacob Thomas, the senior most serving member of the IPS in the State and currently MD of Metal Industries, Shornur, a Government of Kerala undertaking. The firm manufactures spades, pick axes, shovels etc. It has four officers and 36 employees, besides the MD. The salary of the senior most officer, the Works Manager, was Rs 43,890/- as on November 15, 2019.

Dr. Jacob Thomas invited the wrath of the IAS lobby after he sought permission to prosecute some of them as Director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau. The lobby tried its best to get him removed, but Pinayari Vijayan was in no mood to relent. The lobby threatened to go on mass casual leave. The Chief Minister called them and, according to a report in Mathrubhumi daily, said he had withheld sanction to prosecute the then Chief Secretary, K.M. Abraham, and the then Additional Chief Secretary, Tom Jose (current Chief Secretary, due to retire) in cases of disproportionate assets. He indicated he had protected another Additional Chief Secretary, Paul Antony (without naming him) in a case of nepotism.

The mass casual leave protest collapsed. But indirect pressure tactics continued till Jacob Thomas was shifted to a nondescript organization - Institute of Management in Government. K.M. Abraham retired and has been given a sinecure as ex-officio Secretary of Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), currently resisting audit by the CAG. Even the compensation offered to him is reportedly in violation of all rules.

The hounding of Jacob Thomas continued with cases initiated against him for saying publicly that the relief work, post the Ockhi typhoon, was not adequate and for publishing a book, ‘Swimming with the Sharks’, without prior permission from the government. He was under suspension for almost 18 months when the Central Administrative Tribunal ordered his reinstatement in an equivalent position. Hence his assignment as MD of Metal Industries with the same status of Director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, through order dated October 5, 2019.

On learning about the above appointment through the media, I complained to the Governor, Kerala, on October 16, 2019, on grounds that thought Dr. Jacob Thomas had accepted this low-level assignment, I am concerned as a citizen at the high cost incurred by the exchequer in granting him a designation, pay and perks, beyond the entitlements of the office he is now serving; and that this is tantamount to abuse of office by the appointing authority. I urged the Governor to ensure that the officer is posted to an office befitting his experience, grade and status, or ensure that his cost to the exchequer does not exceed that of his predecessor. The complaint was forwarded to the General Administration Dept. on December 3, 2019.

Meanwhile, in response to an application under the RTI Act, the Public Information Officer of General Administration Department provided a copy of the Government Order dated October 5, 2019 and nothing more. It mentions Rule 12 of IPS (Pay) Rules, 2016, which are a bundle of contradictions that need to be questioned.

No information was provided regarding the applications seeking prosecution of the three members of the IAS, and the file notes leading to denial of permission. Now, can anybody guess who is the king who kills and the minister who eats in our system of government?

The beauty is that while the king who kills is present all through the narrative, the minister who eats has not appeared at all. Please note that after the minister finishes eating there is (practically) no sign of the crime. Here, so long as evidence exists, the last word can only be that of the judiciary. And it will be the judiciary that will render any evidence irrelevant. 
       06 May 2020
P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

LIFE IN TIMES OF A LOCKOUT


Well, for one who had been daddy sitting for almost 7 years, the lock down is only another name for staying at home. (Not that my dad was sick, or bed ridden. On the other hand, well into his 80s, he was far too active for his age. In a way, even for my age. And that was why I had to be around, to ensure that he did not suffer any fall or such mishap.) After his demise, the only change that had occurred in my routine was an outing for about an hour in the evenings to visit relations or some senior citizens in the neighborhood.  

It was the compulsion that came with the lockdown that made it unpalatable for the first few days. This was so, although it was amply clear that the only way of prevention was to keep social distance. In other words, be with yourself and your family, staying in the same house.

As days dragged on the main obsession was with news on the spread of the virus and the number of casualties- both, who were infected and those who had succumbed.

In Kerala the Chief Minster himself would give out the figures, ensuring that separate figures were mentioned of those who had come with infections from abroad. Piqued by this categorization, an NRI posted a message on social media that the CM should be more circumspect and bear in mind the conditions under which Malayalees were toiling out there to keep their relations here and the State itself economically better off.

The CM had probably taken on the briefing part himself after his Health Minster, who had been doing the briefing earlier, had kept blaming the Center for not doing enough scanning and segregation at the airports.

When lock down was announced apart from essential services, in Kerala, all other government offices were to work with 50 percent attendance every day, with the staff rotating each day. And it was to be a five-day week too.

The Central government offices too were required to work with minimum essential staff. 

But almost a week before the PM announced a three-week national lock down, the apex court had reduced the number of benches from 15 to 6. And when the national lockdown was announced it was reduced to a bench for considering urgent matters. 

We all know that it is only the courts that had been working as per schedules prepared by them, including crowd management (if at all we could call it management) through the number of cases listed for the day. So, there was no rationale in courts doing with namesake benches to deal with ‘urgent’ matters.

How these benches would work also would make one raise one’s eyebrows.

In the apex court, the bench would be in one court room and the advocates in another. The hearing would be conducted through video conferencing.

The Kerala High Court’s designated bench would hold sittings on a few notified days only.

It has been reported that all the cases that had been listed for hearing during the lock down days are being adjourned to Jul 2020, after the summer vacation.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court Bar Association has requested the court to do away with the summer vacation to make up for the lost working days of the court.

The enforcement of the lock down has also invited criticism from some quarters for the way police personnel had resorted to extra-legal methods to punish those who violated the lock down laws. For once, there is a need to condone this because wisdom through the ages tell us that those who are not taught at home to behave will have to learn it at the hands of the public (read police, here).

More importantly the great job done by these public servants, working for more than 12 to 15 hours at a stretch, in delivering food to the needy and assisting the health workers to track and quarantine those who had come into contact with suspected infected persons were a treat to the eyes. There have been reports of these teams facing stiff resistance in some pockets, including being attacked and pelted with stones.

The most heart wrenching scenes during the lockout were of migrant laborers, along with families, trekking back to their native places, hundreds of kilometers away, from Delhi and other cities. The grit amidst helplessness had to be seen to be believed. Some body rightly commented on social media that these poor people never resorted to hurling stones at policemen and security personnel or abusing them. Even their character was emulative when they would only accept the minimum that they needed from those offering food, water and fruits on their way.

The Prime Minister, while announcing the lock down, had clearly requested that the daily wage earners should be looked after by the employers till the situation got back to normal. If only those employers had resorted to paying the advance of their wages for a month and held them back wherever they were, and opted to recover the advance in instalments subsequently, a lot of hardship could have been avoided.

But unlike the migrant laborers, those who congregated at a Nizamuddin mosque created havoc with the national effort to contain the pandemic through social distancing and lock down. Reports indicate that participants of this congregation have been responsible for almost 60 percent of the spurt in cases reported thereafter. Not to mention the herculean task in tracking those who had come into contact with them and quarantining them.

Another alarming report has been of consignments from China being contaminated. It was reported that a few persons of a company in Mysuru, Karnataka who had handled some consignments from China had tested positive. And a couple of European countries too had reported that even the medical stores received from China were found contaminated.

There is this truism that the true worth of a person can be righty gauged only when he is in difficult times. It appears to be true of nations too. One report informed us that a plane loaded with masks, ventilators etc for a European nation was diverted to America because of a higher, cash down payment offered. The only thing missing is the clarity on the role of the US administration in the incidence.

The pandemic has exposed the underbelly of the international organizations like UNO and WHO. Particularly with China heading the UN Security Council on a rotational basis, effort to rake up the issue in the UN has not only failed but WHO is also alleged to be complicit in spreading the virus by relaying too much on the information fed by China only.

The way events have shaped, if somebody believes that it was the trial of a biological weapon gone awry, he cannot be blamed. Now China has also banned research into the origin of this outbreak from Wuhan.

Amidst all these dark clouds, the silver lining is the growth of India as a role model to deal with crises. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to his fellow countrymen to thank the Covid warriors by lighting a lamp or candle for 9 minutes at 9 PM on 5th April was not only received with great aplomb by Indians, in India, it was welcomed equally well by people in Australia, UK, US of A and many more countries, large and small.

There have been reports also of Japan setting up a fund to persuade its companies in China to shift, back to Japan or anywhere else. The chances of many of them shifting to India are good. Such moves can be expected from many of the European and American establishments also.

And, yes, some body has rightly pointed out that India is now a pharmacy for the world. The demand of Hydroxychloroquine by the US of A, for which the President of the US had made a direct request to our Prime Minister, is indeed gratifying.

Unfortunately, there were unwarranted controversies raked up by the media who reported that Trump had threatened India with retaliation and Modi succumbed to it.

But then, media apart, there are many in this country whose only agenda seems to be belittling the nation and it elected leader, Narendra Damodardas Modi. This Covid season seems to establish not only Narendra Modi as a world leader but also this nation as a wonder, defeating a pandemic stoically amidst a lot of poverty.

The predictions from Nostradamus to Einstein are being recollected, of India’s rise to leadership among world’s nations. Something we can all be proud of and help to cheer us in these days of gloom.




P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

14 Apr 2020