It began with a clarification sought over a reimbursement claim of ₹3,500. Not ₹3.5 crore or ₹3.5 lakh. Just ₹3,500, the amount involved in transporting around 1,500 Supreme Court case files from the Greater Kailash office of the state government’s Standing Counsel, Adv Nishe Rajen Shonker, to the Law Wing of Kerala House in New Delhi.
The ₹3,500 claim has since taken on a life of its own, dragging Kerala House into an extraordinary bureaucratic soap opera.
Kerala House, the state government’s mission in Delhi and a popular hub for Keralites, stands on Jantar Mantar Road. Its Law Wing functions out of nearby Travancore House, another heritage building and cultural hub, also in Lutyens’ Delhi.
That is where a dispute over a ₹3,500 transport bill began to grow legs.
The matter travelled from the Law Wing to the office of Resident Commissioner Puneet Kumar, who heads Kerala House, and then to the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, which ordered the transfer of Additional Law Secretary and Kerala House Law Officer Grancy T S back to the state capital.
Grancy, however, has not exactly rushed to pack her bags. She has appealed to Chief Minister V D Satheesan, who also holds the Law portfolio, against the transfer order, which followed the Resident Commissioner’s assessment that her “official performance, conduct and discipline” were “highly unsatisfactory”.
Meanwhile, her junior, Deputy Law Secretary Shanmuvathy Y, has taken the dispute to the Delhi Police, accusing Grancy of criminal trespass, obstruction of official duties and theft of official records.
When contacted, an officer at Parliament Street Police Station said no FIR would be registered for now. The two officials would be called in, and the police would try to resolve the matter amicably, he said.
Movers and shakers
On May 20, two days after the UDF government was sworn in, around 1,500 case files were shifted from Adv Shonker’s Greater Kailash office to the Law Wing premises on Kasturba Gandhi Marg.
According to documents accessed by Onmanorama, Grancy, who heads the Law Wing, had objected to the move, saying Adv Shonker should directly hand over the files to the new Standing Counsels once they were appointed by the new government, as was the practice. There was also the rather mundane question of who would foot the transport bill.
Grancy relented after Adv Shonker said he was moving out of his expensive Greater Kailash office and would bear the entire transport cost.
Adv Shonker’s clerk Sreenuvasan Arumugam transferred ₹3,500 to Ravi Transport Co via UPI the same day the files were moved and shared the payment receipt with Grancy.
Nearly a month later, on June 16, Deputy Law Secretary Shanmuvathy submitted a claim for ₹3,500 with Kerala House, stating that she had personally paid Ravi Transport. The company’s bill, dated May 20, attached to the claim, carried her seal, signature, and the handwritten words “Paid by me”.
On July 28, Additional Resident Commissioner Aswathy Srinivas asked Grancy to explain the reimbursement claim and why an external vehicle had been hired instead of using the official vehicle available with the Law Wing.
Grancy replied the same day, saying she was “shocked” to see the claim because the outgoing Standing Counsel had already paid the transport company. She shared the payment receipt with Aswathy and sought an inquiry and “appropriate disciplinary action” if Shanmuvathy had engaged in financial irregularities. Grancy had also angrily confronted Shanmuvathy over the claim.
However, based on a complaint from Shanmuvathy, Resident Commissioner Puneet Kumar wrote to the state government that Grancy’s “official performance, conduct and discipline” had been “highly unsatisfactory” and sought her immediate transfer.
On August 5, the General Administration Department in Thiruvananthapuram transferred Grancy from Kerala House to the Secretariat with immediate effect, after quoting Puneet Kumar’s report.
The order had a small bureaucratic blooper: Grancy was initially named “Grancy C”. The department had to issue a corrected order two days later, identifying her as Grancy T S.
Sources close to Grancy said she would have accepted the transfer had it not been accompanied by what she considered a damning assessment of her integrity and professionalism. They also questioned why the Resident Commissioner had not first sought her explanation before sending the adverse report to Thiruvananthapuram.
Grancy, who was earlier with the RBI before joining the government, has since appealed to the Chief Minister to reconsider the transfer, and is awaiting a decision.
But as Grancy continued to function as Law Officer in Kerala House despite the transfer order, the Resident Commissioner held back her August salary.
Delhi-based Kerala media outlets picked up the story of a transferred official refusing to vacate her post or quarters, and reported part of the heated exchange between Grancy and Shanmuvathy, without the context surrounding the conversation.
Shanmuvathy then took the matter to the police. She said Grancy had ceased to hold official charge after the August 5 order and that her continued presence in the Law Wing amounted to obstruction of official duty. On September 2, Shanmuvathy approached Parliament Street Police Station accusing Grancy of threat and attempt to assault. The following day, she filed a complaint at Tilak Marg Police Station alleging, among other things, unauthorised entry into the Law Wing, obstruction of official duties, theft of official records, criminal intimidation, threats and physical assault. The missing “official record” mentioned in her complaint was an attendance register kept in her room.
Police, meanwhile, said an FIR on a complaint of trespass and theft could be registered against a head of the department only if it was filed by a higher-ranking official.
After the Deputy Secretary approached police, sources now say the government is considering transferring Shanmuvathy out of Kerala House as well. The show, it seems, is nowhere near over, and it continues to keep the Kerala grapevine in Delhi buzzing.
