Deputy Mayor C.P. Musafar Ahamed has said that what happened at the Kozhikode Corporation office on Tuesday was the most shameful incident in the history of the civic body.
He was speaking to the media on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the protest by the opposition councillors. “We had several honourable people decorating the title of opposition leader in the Corporation. However, this opposition leader dared to misbehave with the Mayor, and it was a mark of disrespect to the position,” he said, adding that the opposition feared that a lot more names would come out as the investigation into the Sanchaya scam progressed and hence the attempt to impose pressure on the Corporation and sabotage the investigation.
Mayor Beena Philip said the decision to suspend the four officials initially was a unanimous one by leaders of all parties and hence the protest by the opposition was irrelevant. “The complaint that the Secretary had received seven months ago was on an entirely different topic and involved some glitches in the Sanchaya software. The issue had been reported to the Information Kerala Mission, which cleared those glitches,” she said. The 236 files mentioned in the said complaint had been cross-checked, and none of them were unauthorised, she said. The issue was that an official had authorisation from areas outside his jurisdiction coming under his login ID, the Mayor added.
Meanwhile, the Corporation has suspended the two officials who were arrested by the police on Sunday in connection with the authorisation of an illegal building at Karikkamkulam. The Corporation plans to cross-check every application for building number from 2019 onwards to clear confusion. The report of the internal investigation team led by the Additional Secretary is to be submitted to the Mayor by Wednesday morning.
“We are planning to introduce biometric login into the Sanchaya software. The demand has been raised with the Director of Local Self Government,” said the Mayor.
