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The government said Mr. Senkumar was an “erring officer”.

The Kerala government has yet again opposed former State police chief T. P. Senkumar's possible
appointment as a member of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT).

In a statement filed in the High Court on November 23, the government said Mr. Senkumar was a
defendant in a libel case filed by former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan and, consequently, did not
qualify to be a KAT member.

Mr. Narayanan had alleged that Mr. Senkumar sought further investigation in the ''ISRO espionage case''
without adducing any fresh evidence and overlooking the discharge report filed by the CBI.

(The E. K. Nayanar-led LDF government in 1997 tasked Mr. Senkumar with reinvestigation of the case
after the CBI found no merit in it.)

The government said Mr. Senkumar was an “erring officer”. He was a potential subject of enquiry by the
Justice D. K. Jain committee tasked by the Supreme Court to bring to book those responsible for the
wrongful prosecution of the ISRO case victims.

The State’s move came close on the heels of media reports that the Centre was considering Mr.
Senkumar for some top slots.

Senkumar not available for comments

Mr. Senkumar was not immediately available for his comments. However, sources close to him said the
government had foisted three false cases on the retired officer to prevent his elevation to the KAT,
which were subsequently quashed by the Kerala High Court.

Mr. Senkumar was accused of having faked a medical certificate to justify a long absence from work. The
government had also alleged that he illegally sanctioned a loan as MD, KSRTC, and disrupted communal
harmony in a magazine interview.

Mr Senkumar's confidants said he had become a thorn in the side of some CPI(M) leaders after the
murder of T. P. Chandrasekharan in 2012. Mr Senkumar was head of intelligence then. He was
reinstated as State police chief by the Supreme Court in 2017 after the Pinarayi Vijayan government
ousted him.

Mr Senkumar is likely to challenge the State’s latest move in the High Court.

SAARC Summits are usually held biennially hosted by a member state in alphabetical order.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) summit, Foreign Office Spokesman Mohammad Faisal said on Tuesday.

The 2016 SAARC Summit was to be held in Islamabad. But after a deadly terrorist attack on an Indian
Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in September that year, India expressed its inability to
participate in the summit due to “prevailing circumstances”.
The summit was called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also declined to participate in the
Islamabad meet. Maldives and Sri Lanka are the seventh and eighth members of the initiative.

Addressing a conference in Islamabad on Tuesday, Mr. Faisal recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan in
his victory speech had said that if India took one step forward, Pakistan would take two.

Prime Minister Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the SAARC summit, Mr. Faisal was quoted as saying
by Dawn newspaper.

He said that Prime Minister Khan, in a letter to his Indian counterpart, had expressed Pakistan's
openness to resolving all outstanding issues through dialogue with India.

“We fought a war with India, relations cannot be fixed quickly,” Mr. Faisal said.

SAARC Summits are usually held biennially hosted by a member state in alphabetical order. The member
state hosting the summit assumes the Chair of the Association. The last SAARC Summit in 2014 was held
in Kathmandu, which was attended by Modi.

Mr. Faisal also said that the Kartarpur Corridor, which will facilitate the visa-free travel of Indian Sikh
pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan, is expected to be completed within six
months.

“In this century diplomacy has completely changed,” he said, adding policies are now made based on
citizens’ emotions and wishes.

Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan is located across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba
Nanak shrine in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district. It was established by the Sikh Guru in 1522. The first
Gurdwara, Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, was built here, where Guru Nanak Dev is said to have died.

Both India and Pakistan have decided to build a corridor, linking Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab’s Gurdaspur
district with the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan.