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Published Nov 14, 2025 | 6:01 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 14, 2025 | 6:01 PM
Suspended officer N Prasanth.
What does a suspended IAS officer do on the anniversary of his suspension?
In Kerala, he writes a Facebook post that shakes up the bureaucracy. On 11 November, N Prasanth marked one year of his suspension with a post accusing the state’s top official of corruption and hypocrisy.
On 12 November, the government replied officially, with an order extending his suspension till 4 May 2026.
Prasanth, a 2007-batch IAS officer, was first suspended on 11 November 2024 by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, alongside fellow officer K. Gopalakrishnan.
The charge: “official misconduct, violation of service rules, and impropriety.”
The reason, however, has remained a matter of legend — a Facebook post quoting the cult Malayalam film Manichithrathazhu.
The post, which used the line “Madampalliyile manorogi” (“the mental patient of Madampally”), was apparently too idiomatic for the higher bureaucracy to digest.
The then Chief Secretary, Sarada Muraleedharan, reportedly found it unbecoming of an officer, and soon, the metaphor turned into a memo.
Since then, the government has kept extending the officer’s suspension with clockwork regularity — every six months, like a subscription renewal for administrative purgatory.
On 11 November 2025, Prasanth commemorated his “suspension anniversary” on Facebook — and it wasn’t your usual sentimental throwback.
Instead, it read like a serialised expose — complete with names, dates, file numbers, and rhetorical bombs.
He began cheerily:
“So, here is my suspension-anniversary post! I was suspended for a Facebook post that used an idiomatic film line… Unfortunately, we have colleagues who don’t understand basic Malayalam or local culture.”
Then came the grenades.
In a lengthy post, Prasanth accused the now Chief Secretary, Dr. A. Jayathilak, of corruption, misuse of power, and everything in between — from the Muttil tree felling scandal to the Spices Board travel scam to shipwreck mismanagement.
Each allegation ended with a refrain worthy of a courtroom drama:
“Now who has to take action? The present Chief Secretary. Who is the present Chief Secretary? Dr. Jayathilak.”
It was less a Facebook post and more of a chargesheet with literary flair.
The timing of the latest suspension extension adds a fresh layer of irony.
In April 2025, a suspension review committee chaired by IAS officer Sarada Muraleedharan (now retired) reportedly recommended revoking Prasanth’s suspension.
But when the same committee reconvened in May — this time chaired by the newly appointed Chief Secretary, A. Jayathilak (yes, the very officer Prasanth accuses) — it recommended the exact opposite: extend the suspension by another 180 days.
The final government order referenced both meetings but politely ignored the one that wanted him reinstated.
The bureaucracy, it appears, runs on selective reading.
Prasanth’s post wasn’t bitter — it was almost celebratory, closing with Sanskrit flair:
“Dharmo rakshati rakshitah” — “Dharma protects those who protect it.”
Between the lines, it read as both defiance and despair — a bureaucrat-turned-whistleblower trapped in administrative limbo.
He accused the state of shielding corruption and silencing dissent, calling his punishment a “power-lobby orchestrated attempt to browbeat honesty.”
Meanwhile, his suspension continues, quietly renewed like an auto-debit deduction nobody notices.
In Kerala’s bureaucratic theatre, everyone seems to have a role — the whistleblower, the accused, the silent witness, and the government that keeps the curtains drawn.
As Prasanth quipped in his anniversary post:
“I was suspended for calling out corruption—using, incidentally, a well-known Malayalam film idiom.”
Perhaps the only thing missing now is the film’s famous background score — because this script is far from over.
In the end, the story is less about one officer’s suspension and more about a system allergic to self-reflection.
Prasanth’s Facebook post may have crossed a line, but it also held up a mirror — one that few in the upper echelons seem eager to look into.
As his suspension quietly rolls on, it’s the silence of those mirrors that speaks the loudest.
