Suspended Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer N Prasanth has accused Kerala’s Chief Secretary of reversing a decision to allow live-streaming and video recording of his disciplinary hearing without offering any explanation. The allegation, made public via a Facebook post on Monday, has stirred a debate on transparency and administrative conduct in the state bureaucracy.
Prasanth, who was suspended in November 2024 for publicly criticising senior IAS officer A Jayathilak on social media, had requested that his personal hearing be streamed live and digitally recorded to ensure transparency. In an open letter sent to the Chief Secretary on February 10, 2025, he asserted that the proceedings against him were biased and called for the charges to be dropped. He also insisted that the hearing be conducted online with proper documentation and transparency.
Following his request, the state government directed Prasanth to appear before the Chief Secretary on April 16 for a “personal hearing, as desired.” According to Prasanth, his request for recording and streaming the hearing was accepted on April 4 but abruptly withdrawn a week later, on April 11.
“In the letter dated February 10, the request was solely to record and stream the hearing. Though this request was fully accepted on April 4, it was withdrawn on April 11. No reasons were mentioned in the letter as to why the decision changed after seven nights,” Prasanth wrote on Facebook.
Criticising sections of the media for calling his request unusual, Prasanth said, “Some palace correspondents are calling the request strange. In this era of the Right to Information and transparency, who finds this strange?”
He also accused government officials of leaking confidential details of his disciplinary proceedings to the media. “I even saw some media persons dramatically acting as though the original order permitting streaming never existed,” he added.
The suspended officer claimed that he had to rely on TV channels and newspapers to learn about critical documents and decisions related to his case. He further alleged that several of his formal communications to the Chief Secretary’s office, including seven reply letters, were ignored on technical grounds because they were not titled “Statement of Defense.”
Prasanth also said that despite multiple written requests, he received key documents related to the disciplinary process only after a delay of one month. He expressed concern that official correspondence addressed directly to the Chief Secretary may have gone missing.
Meanwhile, the Kerala government has denied his fresh request for streaming and recording the upcoming hearing.
Notably, Prasanth was suspended on the same day as another IAS officer, K Gopalakrishnan, who allegedly formed a religion-based WhatsApp group for government officials. While Gopalakrishnan was reinstated in January 2025, Prasanth’s suspension was extended by another 120 days.
In his February letter, Prasanth reiterated serious allegations against senior officers A Jayathilak, K Gopalakrishnan, and Sarada Muraleedharan. He also claimed that a formal complaint he submitted against Jayathilak in November 2024, supported by documentary evidence, was never investigated.
As the controversy deepens, questions about administrative transparency and the handling of internal disciplinary processes in Kerala’s bureaucracy continue to mount.
Sources By Agencies
