The Kerala anti-corruption police has received legal clearance to proceed against the son of veteran Communist leader and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan.
The vigilance and anti-corruption bureau (VACB) had sought its counsels’ opinion on registering a case against V A Arun Kumar for amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income while holding different positions in the government.
Sources said the director general of police (DGP), Jacob Thomas, who heads the VACB, will now take a final decision.
Achuthanandan, 92, a hugely popular leader known for his dislike of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, now heads the state’s administrative reforms commission.
Kumar’s case will be a real test for Thomas and Vijayan, who maintain that the anti-corruption sleuths are free to act in graft cases, especially since the bureau had launched a thorough probe against some ministers in the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government led by the Congress party.
A new VACB team had questioned Kumar for hours on end in July after Vijayan took over and concluded that his declared income did not match his assets and his spend, particularly during the frequent foreign jaunts.
Kumar had made several visits to places like London, Singapore and Macau, while heading the Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD).
The VACB had received a go-ahead from the Kerala High Court in 2014 to proceed against Kumar. The UDF was in power then. However, the investigation got bogged down for reasons unknown.
Kumar, a post-graduate in computer applications from a government-aided private college, allegedly rose to senior IHRD position flouting all norms. The VACB found irregularities in his appointment and quick promotions to the top post in a short span of 12 years.
Former chief minister Oommen Chandy had raised 11 allegations against Kumar when he led the opposition at the fag end of Achuthanandan’s rule in 2011. An Assembly Committee on March 8, 2012, concluded that nine of these allegations needed further probing.
An initial investigation found that Kumar had doctored documents and violated norms of the IHRD, which runs several engineering colleges in Kerala, to become its additional director.
Kumar became the managing director of the state-run Kerala State Cooperative Coir Marketing Federation (Coirfed) at a young age.
The qualifications initially required for the IHRD post was a master’s degree in engineering and eight years of teaching experience. However, this was later amended to suit Kumar’s qualifications, and he also made a false claim regarding the teaching experience to become the IHRD associate director.
The government created two more positions to accommodate him when his father was chief minister. Kumar was also appointed the director of the newly-created Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Academy under the IT department under him.
Kumar also managed to get a registration for PhD at the University of Kerala to protect his position as all other directors hold a PhD. This would also have bolstered his claim to higher posts.
However, the Kerala High Court directed the university authorities to cancel his registration as he did not have the mandatory qualifications.