Remove Siby Mathew – An appeal to Kerala Governor

To Sri H R Bhardwaj, Hon’ble Governor in Charge of Kerala.

I am sure you are well aware of the controversies involving Mr Siby Mathew, Chief Information Commissioner, Kerala State Information Commission.

You have only recently suspended Mr Natarajan, an Information Commissioner under the very same Siby Mathew, on an allegation of trying to influence the investigating officer in a land deal involving the then CM, Mr V S Achuthanandan and an exserviceman Mr Soman. While law should take its own course, it cannot be the case for one and not for the other. The cases involving Natarajan and Siby Mathew begs the following comparison.

1. The case involving Natarajan is only an economic offence. The Suryanelli case is a criminal case of the worst kind. Recently, in the aftermath of the upsurge in Delhi and elsewhere, even the President and the Chief Justice of India, have come out strongly against all forms of crimes against women.

2. Natarajan was not the superior officer of the officer investigating the land deal and hence his ability to influence has to be limited if not nil. Siby Mathew was the officer investigating the Suryanelli case and he is alleged to have distorted the statements of  not only the victim but many witnesses also. And quite a few of these witnesses have made these allegations public now.

In any case every activist working in the area of Right to Information have been demanding reconstitution of the transparency watchdog in a totally transparent manner and following the guidelines issued by the apex court of India in the CVC case.

For reasons given above, you are requested to remove Mr Siby Mathew from his current office of the CIC, KSIC, without any further delay.

Yours truly

Dr P S Panikkar
(Secretary, Jan Jagratha)

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