Kerala Orders a Probe Into Gyanesh Kumar's 2006 File

Kerala has ordered a probe into bribery allegations against the Chief Election Commissioner. The evidence offered is documentary and the file is from 2006. A denial will not close it.

Count the cheques

PATI-BEL, a consortium, won the contract to upgrade the Main Central Road under the Kerala State Transport Project. The previous United Democratic Front government awarded it.

Then the bills stopped clearing. Sajan, one of the consortium's material suppliers, says Lee could not pay local contractors and suppliers because bills were not cleared on time.

"Lee had told me that Kumar had sought Rs 2 crore to clear the bills."

PATI-BEL would not pay. Cheques covering bills of around Rs 17 crore stayed put after engineers had approved them. Sajan was one of the suppliers left unpaid, which gives him a stake in the outcome.

The project was delayed and costs escalated during Kumar's tenure, while the Left Democratic Front government was in power. Both facts are auditable from the project's own correspondence. The contract was awarded under a UDF government. The overrun happened under an LDF one. The file has crossed two state governments.

Follow the file

On September 23, The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions on the special intensive revision of the voter roll, some taken without their knowledge. The objections came from inside the Commission.

On October 2, protests began, nationwide, calling for Kumar's resignation over the Commission's functioning and the revision. He remains Chief Election Commissioner.

On October 23, Sajan wrote to the state Home Minister, Ramesh Chennithala, putting the same allegation in writing. He offered to produce evidence, including Lee's family, before investigators. At least one other person joins him in saying Lee's suicide note named Kumar.

Ask who investigates

Kerala has now ordered the probe. The reporting carries no date for the order, no investigating agency, no deadline and no scope. It quotes the complaint to Chennithala, not his answer to it.

Sajan's offer is the nearest thing to a work plan. Cheque registers exist. Approval sheets exist. Engineers signed off on Rs 17 crore.

The arithmetic is checkable.

That is the problem for anyone hoping the file stays shut.

Nothing in the report says what office Kumar held when the cheques were held back. It says only that the delay and the cost escalation fell inside his tenure. So the order leaves one question open. Can a state inquiry reach a sitting Chief Election Commissioner, and who signs the request if it cannot? Neither the complaint, nor the September investigation, nor the order answers it. The file has been open since 2006. The opinion that would close it does not appear anywhere in the record.