Raju Narayanaswamy, IIT, IAS, Kerala146;s clean-up officer

Man behind the resignation of Kerala Minister has taken on the powers that be, including his father-in-law

One subtle twist in a local district collector8217;s official probe report and T U Kuruvila, Kerala8217;s land scam-tainted public works minister, could probably have hung on in office 8212; not felled the way he was, today. But the Collector was Raju Narayanaswamy. And that is saying a lot in Kerala.

This middle class Iyer from Changanassery, known for taking on political and other heavies like few IAS officers would dare, has remained a pariah for most parties in Kerala8217;s two political halves. The brushes soon came to a point where he took on his father-in-law, a big-time contractor, who wanted to block off a public road to a poor neighbourhood of Scheduled Castes to wall up land for himself.

8220;I requested my father-in-law not to misuse my position as the local Sub-Collector, but he wouldn8217;t listen. I invoked the Criminal Procedure Code and served orders on him, called in the police and carried out the demolition,8221; recounts the man who once led a raid on the home of one of Kerala8217;s politically influential liquor barons who wouldn8217;t pay up the Rs 11 crore that he owed the government in taxes, and seized his belongings. A minister rang up, asking him to lay off and return the seized stuff, Narayanaswamy refused and was on the political hitlist yet again.

Controversies, and trouble, have always been with Narayanaswamy, the topper of the 1991 IAS batch 8212; he topped the SSC exams as well 8212; and a topper at IIT Chennai8217;s computer science department who turned down an MIT scholarship to enter the Civil Service. Nine years ago, he bulldozed the sides of an important Thrissur road to widen it, hitting businesses with clout who pulled strings to perpetually harass him. Five years ago, he had a run-in with a prominent north Kerala minister in Kasargod. Narayanaswamy refused to recommend sanction as the local District Collector, to turn a hospital that the minister owned into a private medical college, without prescribed infrastructure.

Narayanaswamy says his run-ins are only because he can8217;t help being 8220;stubborn8221; when things turn 8220;unjustifiable.8221; Like when he refused permission to a real-estate businessman to fill up a large paddy farm 8212; it would have deluged some 50 poor village homes nearby with waste from the adjacent government hospital. And when he refused to sanction payment for a badly built earthen bund costing several crores meant to help poor farmers 8212; he was proved right when the bund dissolved and vanished in the rains.

He was made to go on forced leave as managing director of the state Marketing Federation MARKETFED after refusing to play ball with the chairman, a senior politician. He was shunted to sinecure assignments, even posted to work under junior officers.

When Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan wanted encroachers in Munnar driven out, Narayanaswamy was one of the CM8217;s three handpicked men. Even senior CPM leaders objected to his choice but VS stood his ground.

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The Kuruvila affair is the latest. The Minister8217;s children had taken Rs 6.5 crore from an NRI businessman promising to sell him some prime land, soon suspected to be encroached. The sale did not happen, the NRI went public while Kuruvila maintained everything was above board. Narayanaswamy probed the land the Minister8217;s children were to sell: he reported that a good part of the land they purveyed was government land, some suspectedly benami. Kuruvila could only agree to quit.