HC seeks Centre’s response on State govt appeal filed against directive to probe illegal appointments in SERIFED

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has sought a response from the Central government on an appeal filed by the State government against a single judge ‘s directive to the State government to probe the recruitment of 300 persons in SERIFED(Kerala State Sericulture Co-operative Apex Society Limited) by its nominated director board and induction of illegally appointed 271 SERIFED employees in various govt services and the Kerala Khadi and village Industries board. When the appeal came up for hearing recently, the Bench was of the prima facie view that the State would not be an appropriate body to hold an inquiry with regard to the conduct of the committee manning the SERIFED at a relevant point of time viz-a-viz the appropriation/misappropriation of the Central funds. The court, therefore, asked the Centre government to respond in this regard. The single judge directives came on a batch of writ petitions filed by the Kerala State Sericulture Cooperative Federation and others regarding the proposals for the revival of the SERIFED. The single judge had also directed the State government to take a final decision on the revival of SERIFED.