RTI response debunks Oommen Chandy’s claims about senior IPS officer Jacob Thomas

Thomas was shunted out after he attempted to strictly implement safety regulations for highrises, stone quarrying units that stored explosives and tourist houseboats in the backwaters. During his short term, the Fire and Rescue Services had rejected around 50 applications for clearance certificates from builders.

A day after Jacob’s removal was confirmed on September 17, Chandy told reporters that his “government had received several complaints against the official”.

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However, the RTI reply made public on Wednesday said there wasn’t any such complaint registered or recorded against the head of the fire force. The Chief Minister’s office said the Cabinet decided to remove Thomas based on “media reports” and “verbal complaints” Chandy had received.

After being removed from the force, Thomas was made the managing director of the Kerala State Police Construction Corporation, a post held by a junior IPS officer. He had subsequently alleged that “builders had influenced the Chief Minister” to remove him from the fire force.

The Congress-led Government’s action had drawn flak from several quarters, including the party’s state president V M Sudheeran who said the decision would “send a wrong message that the government was standing for corruption and can’t protect whistle-blowers”.

Opposition CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan asked Chandy to “reveal the names of the builders who lobbied for the removal of the honest officer”.

Citing examples of Thomas’s alleged lapses last month, Chandy had claimed that the fire force did not rush a woman to hospital when she was lying unconscious at the railway station in Kannur. Another charge levelled by Chandy was the force did not respond to calls when a fallen tree had blocked a road and stalled traffic in Wayanad.

Thomas had earlier supervised the Vigilance department’s probe against Congress ally Kerala Congress’s Finance Minister K M Mani in a bar bribery scandal. Jacob was removed in May as ADGP Vigilance in the final stages of the probe, which eventually gave a clean chit to Mani.

While supervising the bribery case, Thomas had alleged that he was facing threats from various quarters.

After he was moved out of Vigilance, Mani got a reprieve as the department sought legal advice from a private pleader in the Supreme Court — its final report did not indict Mani.

Recently, a Vigilance court pulled up the department director Vinson M Paul for seeking legal advice in the case from an “alien agency” when the government has its own legal machinery.

According to the Kerala Police Act 2011, an officer from the rank of SHO to DGP should be allowed to continue in a post for two years. Thomas was removed from the Fire and Rescue department after just five months of service.