Former district judge to probe Saseendran scandal

A retired district court judge will probe the sleaze allegations against A K Saseendran, who resigned as Transport Minister.
A decision in this regard was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan this morning.
Retired judge P S Antony will head the judicial commission to probe into the allegations against Saseendran and submit its report in three months time, an official release said here.
The state government had earlier decided to conduct a judicial probe into the charges against 72-year-old Saseendran, who resigned on March 26, after a Malayalam television channel released an audio clipping, purportedly a telephone conversation of Saseendran speaking in sexual undertones to a woman.

As soon as the scandal broke out, Saseendran resigned onmoral grounds, but said his resignation should not be construed as an admission of guilt.
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The terms and reference of the commission said it would ascertain the circumstances in which the alleged sleaze talk was held and whether the talks had been edited with any ulterior motive.
Besides identifying the persons involved in recording the conversation, the commission would also find out if any irregularity had been committed in its recording.
It would also ascertain if there was any conspiracy or illegality in airing the audio clipping, a press release said.

Besides this, the commission can also look into any other matter connected with or incidental to the case, the statement added.
Meanwhile, in a related development, the police registered a case on a complaint by the family members of a woman, whose photograph pertaining to her participation in a function with the former minister Saseendran looking at her appeared in the social media.
The social media photograph of the woman led to people perceiving her to be the one with whom Saseendran had the lewd talks and this resulted in the woman's family members to approach police to prevent circulation of the photograph on social media.

The complaint has been forwarded to the cyber cell for verifying the IP address and other details.