THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After a section of people passed comments against the propriety of the notice issued by KSEB chairman and managing director B Ashok to executive engineer M G Suresh Kumar over unauthorised use of official vehicles, the management has clarified that the notice was issued according to norm. The notice had demanded that Suresh, who is also the president of the pro-Left KSEB Officers’ Association (KSEBOA), remit Rs 6,72,560 for the unauthorised use of KSEB vehicles while he was serving as the additional private secretary to former power minister M M Mani.
The KSEB clarification – issued by the full-time directors of the board – said that some comments made by people, including those in KSEBOA, on the notice were baseless. The board said the notice was served on a complaint examined by the KSEB vigilance on the use of vehicles since 2019. The chief vigilance officer and the director (finance) had found that the vehicles were used for unofficial purposes. The board could not find any order, either from its offices or the government, authorising Suresh to use the vehicles. According to norms, only government secretaries and department heads, private secretaries of ministers, district collectors and high-ranking police officers are entitled to use official vehicles for their travel back home. It is the responsibility of an additional private secretary to produce the special sanction, if any, to use the vehicles, the KSEB clarification pointed out.
The Kerala Civil Service Classification Control Rules, 196o, entitles both the appointing authority and the authority sanctioning deputation to take disciplinary action against an employee. After the deputation ends, complaints against an employee during the deputation period are to be examined by the appointing authority. For that, the appointing authority does not require any sanction from the authority which sanctioned the deputation, the KSEB said.
If Suresh had secured any sanction for the free use of official vehicles, he can mention that in his reply to the notice. Still, he did not have the authority to use the vehicle sanctioned to the chief engineer (transmission) even for official use, the clarification said.