Vigilance starts anti-corruption inquiry against two Kerala IPS officers, including ADGP Ajith Kumar

VACB launches detailed anti-corruption probe against top IPS officers in Kerala based on serious allegations by legislator.

The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has commenced a “detailed anti-corruption enquiry” against two ranking IPS officers in Kerala, including the State’s top law enforcer, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Law and Order, M.R. Ajith Kumar. 

In a government order issued on Friday (September 20, 2024), the Home department also brought Sujith Das, former District Police Chief of Malappuram and later Pathanamthitta, who served under Mr. Kumar, under the probe’s ambit.

(The government had earlier suspended Mr. Das pending a detailed enquiry and placed him on a subsistence allowance.)

The government ordered the investigation based on a complaint filed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Independent legislator P.V. Anvar who represents the Nilambur constituency in Malappuram district.

Mr. Anvar stirred the pot last month by accusing the officers of criminality, corruption, nepotism, secret felling and smuggling of decades-old trees from government land for their valuable timber, the amassment of ill-gotten wealth, and the deployment of plainclothes squads to waylay gold smugglers for their contraband.

Mr Anvar’s charges compelled the government to order a preliminary enquiry headed by State Police Chief (SPC) Sheikh Darvesh Sahib. The MLA had written the accusations to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in person and met him at the latter’s office in the government Secretariat last month. 

In the order released by the Chief Minister’s Office on Friday, the government said Mr. Sahib reported that Mr. Anvar’s accusations against the officers had a “vigilance angle.”