THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The K Sasidharan Nair committee which probed into the Sprinklr deal has submitted its report whitewashing former IT secretary M Sivasankar. Former Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday came out against the report and sought a judicial probe into the deal.
The Sasidharan Nair committee, appointed by the previous LDF government, was the second panel that probed into the Sprinklr deal. The first committee headed by M Madhavan Nair had blamed Sivasankar for the deal. This committee was appointed after the then Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala raised allegations against the deal. It was against this backdrop that the government appointed another panel led by Justice (retired) K Sasidharan Nair to look into the deal.
In its report, the Sasidharan Nair committee said even though issuing the contract was a lapse on the part of Sivasankar, it was done with good intentions. The committee said Sivasankar acted on the Sprinklr deal taking into account the grave situation when the pandemic was at its peak.
Reacting to the report on Wednesday, Ramesh Chennithala rubbished the committee’s findings. If the committee gives a clean chit to Sivasankar, who is the real culprit, he asked. Unleashing a tirade against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Chennithala said the CM's intention was to sabotage the Madhavan Nair committee’s findings and protect Sivasankar.
“My allegations were found to be true by the Madhavan Nair committee. The new report is meant to whitewash the Left government. The people and the state government should dismiss the second committee report. The case that I filed in this regard is already pending before the High Court. I would consult my advocate T Asaf Ali on what more needs to be done in the light of the second committee’s report," said Chennithala.
The irony is that the second committee also dealt with the same terms of reference set for the first committee, in addition to analysing the first committee's report. This had left Madhavan Nambiar fuming as he had highlighted the procedural lapses by the LDF government.
Madhavan Nambiar and Gulshan Rai, former cyber security coordinator, Government of India, were appointed on April 20 last to probe three aspects -- whether the privacy pertaining to 1.80 lakh citizens has been adequately protected or not, whether there have been any procedural lapses while finalizing the agreement with Sprinklr Inc and whether deviations, if any, were fair, justified and reasonable considering the predicament the state was facing.
A person of Gulshan Rai’s repute had agreed to take up the role after much persuasion on the part of the LDF government. They had submitted their detailed report on October 22 last year. Their report had highlighted the lapses by the IT department which had done it unilaterally without taking the law department into confidence before entering into the agreement.