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HomeIndia‘Genius gone rogue’: Rise and fall of Kerala IAS officer M. Sivasankar,...

‘Genius gone rogue’: Rise and fall of Kerala IAS officer M. Sivasankar, arrested for 3rd time

This month, ED arrested Sivasankar, the powerful ex-principal secretary of CM Pinarayi Vijayan, for his alleged role in a housing scam linked to infamous gold smuggling case.

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Thiruvananthapuram: Some praise him as a “great strategist” and others pillory him as a “schemer”, but everyone will agree that disgraced former Kerala IAS officer M. Sivasankar, 60, had acquired unprecedented clout as the principal secretary of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan between 2016 and 2020. Now, with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arresting him just weeks after his retirement, marking his third time behind bars, he is back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Among his ex-colleagues, there is still a sense of disbelief at the shadow over Sivasankar’s career. For most of them, he was a brilliant officer known for his problem-solving skills, but now he is best known as an accused in three infamous and interlinked gold smuggling, currency smuggling, and housing scam cases.

Last February, when Sivasankar was released on bail after spending 98 days behind bars — in connection with money laundering, dollar smuggling, and gold smuggling cases registered against him — many serving bureaucrats such as Dr. V. Venu had leapt to his defense, and some continue to believe in his incorruptibility even to this day.

The fresh arrest on 14 February, though, has added a layer of doubt.

According to the ED’s remand report, of which ThePrint has a copy, Sivasankar was allegedly involved in financial irregularities and kickbacks during a deal struck between a UAE-based charity called Red Crescent and the Kerala government’s LIFE Mission housing project for the poor.

M Sivasankar after he was arrested on 14 February, 2023, by the ED in connection with the LIFE Mission Scam Case | ANI
M Sivasankar after he was arrested on 14 February, 2023, by the ED in connection with the LIFE Mission Scam Case | ANI

When ThePrint contacted Dr. V Venu, currently recuperating from a road accident, he refused to comment on Sivasankar’s latest arrest, citing health reasons.

U.V. Jose, former LIFE Mission CEO, summoned by the ED to record his statement, hung up abruptly when asked about his four-decade-long acquaintance with Sivasankar, dating back to their college days.

Many serving and ex-civil servants did speak off-the-record, however, presenting a picture of a “brilliant” officer who they said seemed to have “gone rogue”, going by the ED’s allegations.


Also read: Pinarayi Vijayan remains immune to graft charges but new book says his family sought favours


Go-getter but ‘scant regard’ for rules

According to at least half a dozen of his former colleagues, certain traits that held Sivasankar in good stead for most of his career may have eventually contributed to his downfall.

He was a doer and a go-getter, they claimed, but also had a tendency to not go by the book.

For instance, many bureaucrats were of the opinion that Sivasankar had scant regard for the Kerala Secretariat Office Manual and rules he deemed archaic.

When he was moved to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in 2016, several officials alleged, Sivasankar followed the same template and bypassed rules and procedures in a bid to quicken the pace of governance.

Legal acumen was something he lacked, according to lawyer Harish Vasudevan, who thinks that could have been a factor in his fall from grace. For Vasudevan, who continues to remain in awe of the ex-bureaucrat’s aura, “Sivasankar is a great strategist”.

But a veteran journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity, had a counter to this. “Sivasankar is more of a schemer than a strategist”, the journalist alleged.

Of course, going by the contentions in a tell-all book by gold-smuggling accused Swapna Suresh, the latter adjective would be more fitting. The allegations in this book, published last October, has not yet been countered by either Sivasankar or the ruling CPI(M).

Student activist to ‘most powerful’ official

Sivasankar was born in a reasonably well-to-do family in Thiruvananthapuram, his father serving as a government official and mother teaching at the University College.

An academically bright student, Sivasankar was a rank holder for matriculation and completed a degree in engineering from NSS College in Palakkad. While in the engineering college, he was an office-bearer of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the students’ outfit of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

After his post-graduation from the Institute of Rural Management, he cleared the Kerala State Public Services Commission exam, serving a brief tenure with the Reserve Bank before being appointed as a deputy collector. He was inducted into the IAS in 1995. 

 He earned his stripes as Malappuram Collector, between 2003 and 2006, and was instrumental in the development of the Kottakkunnu Park, a vital tourist spot towering over the district headquarters today.

Despite his SFI background, Sivasankar had no issues getting along with the Oommen Chandy-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government, when it was in power from 2011-2016.

 “Sivasankar was a workaholic and meticulous,” according to a Congress leader who worked with the officer closely during this period.

“We did not realise he was also moonlighting as a deal-maker,” he added, with a tinge of disbelief.

Another Congress leader concurred: “Even P.K. Kunhalikutty, the then industries minister, was keen to get Sivasankar into his department”. According to UDF ally C.P. John, Sivasankar was also highly regarded by the then power minister, the late Aryadan Muhammed.

According to former additional secretary Sajan Peter, no one pointed a finger when Sivasankar was handpicked by Pinarayi Vijayan to his office as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in 2016.

Sivasankar was shortly promoted as principal secretary and also given the charge of the department of Electronics and Information Technology, held by Vijayan.

To Peter, it is the set-up in the chief minister’s office (CMO) that proved perilous to Sivasankar’s career graph.

Veteran journalist and editor Roy Mathew concurred.

“Bombastic statements aside, Pinarayi Vijayan is among the weakest administrators Kerala has ever seen. Vijayan was so dependent on Sivasankar that he would be totally beholden to the bureaucrat,” he said.

Many successes, marred by controversy

In hindsight, many eyebrows were raised about the way Sivasankar simultaneously held the charge of the IT department, especially with the CM’s daughter Veena Vijayan’s entrepreneurial and business interests in the sector.

But according to Saji Gopinath, who led the Kerala Startup Mission between 2017 and 2020, Sivasankar’s quick decision-making helped the growth of Kerala’s start-up ecosystem.

In 2022, the state ranked at the top for the third time in a row as top performer in the Union Ministry of Commerce’s States’ Startup Ranking.

Now vice-chancellor of the Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Gopinath recalls Sivasankar as a “man of ideas” who conceptualised unique schemes.

According to his detractors, however, Sivasankar also conceptualised ways and means to ensure cuts from the incubation of start-ups and other projects.

Sivasankar inaugurating an event in 2019 | Twitter/@fosskerala

Another one of Sivasankar’s greatest achievements was devising an efficient grievance redressal mechanism in the CMO, according to Vasudevan.

While the powers concentrated in him made him more powerful than the higher-ranked state chief secretary, Sivasankar had his own way of keeping a low profile.

For instance, unlike many Kerala bureaucrats’ preoccupation with public relations, Sivasankar didn’t give two hoots for write-ups in the media. Looking back, given the high-profile charges against him, it could have been Sivasankar’s way of working for his own greater goals, allege those who know him. That also perhaps explains why he did not have too many run-ins with the chief secretary or other bureaucrats, they claim.

However, allegations of overreach did lead to the media spotlight on Sivasankar when the controversy over the Sprinklr deal erupted in April 2020.

At the time, the Congress-led opposition had accused the Vijayan government of making a deal with the US-based tech firm Sprinklr to process the health data of about 1.75 lakh quarantined people without taking their consent, thus compromising their privacy. Sivasankar, then IT secretary, also came under scrutiny for alleged procedural lapses.

In an unprecedented move, Sivasankar then gave a series of interviews to Kerala’s news channels to put up a stout defense, and went so far as to meet the Communist Party of India (CPI) state secretary Kanam Rajendran to try and assuage his concerns.

Sivasankar also had to deal with K.K. Shailaja’s opposition  from within the system. Eventually, in 2021, a state government-appointed expert panel deemed that Sivasankar had not acted in “bad faith”.

But a bigger problem was already brewing. In July 2020, the gold smuggling scandal broke out, leading to Sivasankar’s first arrest.

The labyrinthine case had its origins in 30kg of gold worth Rs 15 crore being recovered in June 2020 from diplomatic baggage from Dubai. It soon brought to light a host of concerning allegations, including suspected networks involving high-ranking state government officials and diplomats, kickbacks amounting to crores of rupees, and financial improprieties in government projects like the LIFE Mission.

Yet, despite these controversies, Sivasankar’s achievements have been notable — from rolling out the Akshaya e-literacy project in Malappuram, to the successful conduct of the 2015 national games in Thiruvananthapuram.

Nothing would exemplify that more than the endorsement he received from the late D. Babu Paul, a legendary civil servant and author.

In Paul’s autobiographical service story Kadha Ithuvare, Sivasanakar gets handsome praise along with M. Joseph, Sajan Peter and Kuruvilla John as state recruits who excelled even more than direct IAS recruits.

Despite the bright spots, though, Sivasankar’s reputation as a “genius gone rogue” has added a tinge of grey to his entire career.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)


Also read: A well-kept secret about Pinarayi Vijayan’s CPM is out in the open—factionalism


 

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