Kerala govt did not allocate specific departments to any special government pleader, says CM V.D. Satheesan

Trying to end the controversy over the appointment of Devaswom special government advocate KB Pradeep, Kerala Chief Minister VD Satheesan on Wednesday said that the State government has not allotted specific departments to any of the government advocates it appointed last week.

Opposition parties had criticized the State government over the appointment of Mr. Pradeep, who they claimed represented Chennai-based firm Smart Creations, which was under a cloud of suspicion in the Sabarimala gold theft case. Mr Pradeep resigned following the controversy.

“Although the government appointed 80 lawyers, it did not allocate any of them to specific departments. The departments were to be determined only after consultations after the Budget. In the past, we did not have a system to check who each of these 80 lawyers represented in the courts. We corrected this error as soon as it was noticed.”

Mr Satheesan said the allegation that the decision was taken without the knowledge of the Cabinet was “incorrect”. Copies of the resolution were distributed to all Cabinet members. However, he said that full responsibility for the decision belonged to him.

He said reports that the UDF government had withdrawn the LDF government’s Sthird Suraksha Scheme to provide monthly pension of ₹ 1,000 to unemployed women and transgender women were false.

“The previous government announced this scheme at the end of its term. We need to look at the details of the beneficiaries as there are complaints about it,” he said.

Regarding the allegations of shortage of medicine to treat Nipah, he said that a medicine that was not available was supplied from Bahrain within 24 hours.

He said the arrest of a local leader of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in the ‘blasphemous screenshot’ case has exposed the Communist Party of India (Marxist). [CPI(M)]’s “game plan of sowing social divisions for electoral profits.” He accused the CPI(M) of “following the Sangh Parivar playbook” to win the Lok Sabha elections in Vadakara.