THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Suspended IAS officer Prasanth N appeared for a hearing before Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan here on Wednesday in which he maintained that he has not violated any service rule through his social media posts, allegedly directed at senior IAS officer A Jayathilak.
The 2007 batch officer is also learnt to have reiterated his demand for action against Jayathilak and IAS officer K Gopalakrishnan for falsely charging him with missing files and attendance irregularities. He also demanded action against a Malayalam daily that published the news containing the ‘false’ charges against him.
Prashanth reportedly told the chief secretary that he would be forced to take legal recourse if action was not taken against the two IAS officers and the daily.
Emerging after the hearing at the Secretariat, Prasanth told the media that the hearing has given him an opportunity to present the facts before the chief secretary.
“If there are lapses on account of my official duty, there is nothing wrong in taking action. But I have been using social media for many years and it has a language of its own. Sensible people are not offended by it,” he told reporters.
Just before attending the hearing, Prasanth came out with a Facebook post in connection with the Chief Secretary turning down his demand for a live streaming of the hearing.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the suspension of Prasanth was on charges of violating service rules.