Panel investigating claims that minister sought sexual favours submits report to Kerala CM
The Justice PS Antony panel was set up in March after a new Malayalam TV channel released an incriminating audio clip allegedly of AK Saseendran.
The judicial commission that began to investigate allegations of sexual harassment against former Kerala minister AK Saseendran in March submitted its report to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday, PTI reported.
The state government had set up the Justice PS Antony Commission after a new Malayalam television channel released an audio clip, in which a man can purportedly be heard speaking inappropriately with a woman.
The channel had claimed it was Saseendran’s voice in the clip and alleged that he had called the woman and sought sexual favours. Saseendran, who was then the transport minister, dismissed the charges as “absolutely baseless” but said he was resigning on “moral grounds”. He had met Vijayan to tell him there was something “unnatural” about the news report.
While the details of the 405-page report are not known yet, the panel has recommended that the licence of the Mangalam channel be cancelled, ANI reported.
“The media should be guided by public interest, not commercial interest…The copies of the report will be sent to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the Press Council of India,” Justice Antony said, adding that the report also contains the panel’s observations about the right to privacy and the freedom of the media and its misuse.
Saseendran on Tuesday told PTI he cooperated with the commission and is positive about the report. “I have no negative thoughts,” he said. “I have only positive thoughts about the report.”
Before he resigned, Saseendran was the only Nationalist Congress Party minister in the Kerala Cabinet. After his resignation, party MLA Thomas Chandy was sworn in to his post. Chandy, too, resigned on November 15 after the Kerala High Court criticised him for his decision to challenge the Alappuzha district collector’s report that found violations of land rules by a luxury lake resort he owns.