Raju Narayanaswamy (born 24 May 1968) is an

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the Indian ...

officer and whistleblower. A

district collector A District Collector-cum-District Magistrate (also known as Deputy Commissioner in some states) is an All India Service officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre who is responsible for ''land revenue collection'', ''canal reven ...

for five Kerala districts during his career, Narayanaswamy was one of several IAS officers chosen by former chief minister

V. S. Achuthanandan Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan (born 20 October 1923) is an Indian Communist politician who was the Chief Minister of Kerala from 2006 to 2011. At 82, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He served as the chairman of Admin ...

to investigate corruption in the state. He was transferred many times during his career, and has been compared to fellow IAS officer and whistleblower Ashok Khemka.

Career

A 1991 Kerala-cadre officer and the all India first rank holder of the batch, Narayanaswamy has held a number of posts and has been repeatedly penalised for exposing corruption. His anti-corruption campaign began early in his career, attracting criticism from political bosses and accolades from the public leading to 30 transfers in 32 years. Narayanaswamy was forced to go on leave as managing director of MarketFed and work for junior officers. As district collector of

Thrissur Thrissur (), formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the third largest urban agglomeration in Kerala after Kochi and Kozhikode, and t ...

, he single handedly widened five roads including the Pattalom Road and the Inner Ring Road changing the face of the town. Narayanaswamy refused permission to a real-estate developer to fill a large paddy farm, because it would have flooded about 50 poor village homes nearby with waste from an adjacent government hospital. After the

-led LDF government came into power in Kerala, Narayanaswamy was appointed collector for Idukki district. When Kerala

chief minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

wanted encroachers in

Munnar Munnar () is a town and hill station in the Idukki district of the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. Munnar is situated at around above mean sea level, in the Western Ghats mountain range. Munnar is also called the "Kashmir of South Indi ...

driven out, Narayanaswamy was one of his three handpicked men. Although

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leaders objected to his choice, Achuthanandan stood his ground. In 2007, Narayanaswamy inquired into a proposed land deal by the son and daughter of Kerala Public Works minister

T. U. Kuruvilla Thombrayil Uthup Kuruvilla is a politician from Kerala, India. He was born at Oonjappara, Kothamangalam, Kerala, on 13 September 1936, to Uthuppu and Mariyam. He did his Diploma in Civil Engineering. He is a well known Agriculturist and busin ...

; Kuruvilla was forced to resign after an investigation. Kuruvilla's children had taken ₹65 million from an

NRI NRI or Nri may refer to : * Kingdom of Nri, an Igbo kingdom that flourished between the 10th century and early 20th century * National Radio Institute, a now defunct post-secondary vocational correspondence school * National Resources Inventory * N ...

businessman, promising to sell him land suspected of encroaching. The sale fell through, and the businessman went public; Kuruvilla maintained his innocence. Narayanaswamy, Idukki District Collector, surveyed the land; much was government land, suggesting a violation of the

Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 (name changed to Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988 by section 3 of the 2016 amendment) is an Act of Parliament, Act of the Parliament of India that prohibits certain types of financi ...

, and Kuruvilla resigned. Narayanaswamy has also proceeded against former minister

P. J. Joseph Palathinal Joseph Joseph (born 10 June 1941) is an Indian politician from Kerala Congress serving as the Member of the Legislative Assembly from Thodupuzha Assembly Constituency in Kerala. A former cabinet minister, Joseph entered Kerala poli ...

and his family about alleged illegal landholdings. "In my service life, I have always fought against corruption. We could be sidelined but officers should not get demoralized. The public applause we get for taking a strong stand on issues is what keeps us going", he said. Since 2007, he has been transferred a number of times and been tapped by the

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body. It was established by the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, di ...

for 34 election positions in 16 states across the country. During the 2012 Uttar Pradesh elections, Narayanaswamy was a roll observer for all six districts in Kanpur division. Swamy was removed from his post as civil supplies commissioner in Thiruvananthapuram early the following year after he launched an investigation into corruption charges against civil supplies minister

Anoop Jacob Anoop Jacob (born 16 December 1977) is an Indian politician and a Member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly and Legislative Party leader of the Kerala Congress (Jacob), a constituent of the UDF political alliance.http://kaumudiglobal.com/i ...

. Appointed chairman of the

Coconut Development Board Coconut Development Board (CDB) is a statutory body established under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of India for the integrated development of coconut and coconut-related products. Coconut Development Board is a statutory body es ...

in August 2018, he unearthed corruption involving the CDB's Bangalore regional director and technical officer. Both were investigated and suspended, based on Narayanaswamy's findings. He was transferred on 7 March 2019, after which he went to the Central Administrative Tribunal; where his case is pending. He has been

district magistrate and collector A District Collector-cum-District Magistrate (also known as Deputy Commissioner in some states) is an All India Service officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre who is responsible for ''land revenue collection'', ''canal revenu ...

of five districts in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

. Narayanaswamy, who has been compared to fellow whistleblower Ashok Khemka, has been transferred over 30 times in 32 years.

Literary career and awards

Narayanaswamy has written thirty one books, including the popular-science book ''Nano Muthal Nakshatram Vare''. He received the 2003

Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Travelogue The Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Travelogue is an award given every year by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi (Kerala Literary Academy) to Malayalam writers for writing a travelogue of literary merit. It is one of the twelve categories of the Keral ...

for ''Santhimantram Muzhangunna Thazvarayil''. Narayanaswamy received the

Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award The Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award is an award named after Satyendra Dubey and presented by the IIT-Kanpur. It is awarded annually to an IIT alumnus Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, ...

from

IIT Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...

in 2018 for professional integrity in upholding human values, and was an international observer of the

2018 Zimbabwean general election General elections were held in Zimbabwe on 30 July 2018 to elect the President and members of both houses of Parliament. Held eight months after the 2017 coup d'état, the election was the first since independence in which former President Robe ...

. In December 2021, he received a Leonardo da Vinci Fellowship from

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

to research the prevention of corruption in intellectual property-rights offices with science and technology, including

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

External links

Executive record sheet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Narayanaswamy, Raju 1968 births Living people Civil Servants from Kerala District magistrate IIT Madras alumni Indian Administrative Service officers from Kerala Malayali people People from Thiruvananthapuram district Vazhappally

Career

Literary career and awards

See also

External links