Thiruvananthapuram, Jan. 9: IAS officers' threat to take mass casual leave in Kerala to protest vigilance cases against their colleagues fizzled out today with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan putting his foot down and refusing to heed their demands.

Sources said the CPM leader told a group of officers who met him in his office in the morning in no uncertain terms that their attempts to pressurise the government would not succeed. The chief minister was categorical that there was no question of the government interfering in the probe against any IAS officer.

With the chief minister in no mood to compromise, the officers had no option but to make a hasty retreat and get back to work.

If the rebuke was not enough, Vijayan, who had kept a distance from the media since his swearing-in, went public with his stand today. "At every stage, the government instruction has been that there should be a fair and independent probe. This was not the first time vigilance inquiries were being conducted against IAS officers. There have been previous instances of cases being charged and the indicted officer being suspended.... When some action is taken as part of an investigation, it is natural to have emotional reactions to such actions. But emotions and action are two things," Vijayan told reporters.

The chief minister also sought to convey the point that the IAS lobby was divided on the issue and that only a section of the officials were behind today's move to take mass casual leave.

Vijayan said: "It is in response to registration of an FIR and launch of investigations that a section of IAS officers met and decided on this separate mode of protest. I conveyed to the IAS officers who met me today that it is not a right step. I also made it clear to them that there is no justification for adopting such a mode of protest.

"They explained that they had no intention to move against the government, that there should be no such misunderstanding and that they had taken such a stand only because of their concerns. (We) have not gone into that issue (the concerns of the IAS officers) now. It has been made clear to them that if they had any design to oblige the government through such methods, the government is not ready for it now. They clarified that they had no such intention and the government was accepting it. What happened is something that should not have happened. Officials heading the administrative apparatus planning protests cannot be justified at all," Vijayan told reporters.

The aborted protest was planned by a section of IAS officers who were peeved with the state's anti-graft wing chief, IPS officer Jacob Thomas, for filing corruption cases against some of their colleagues.

Vijayan's stand that there would be no rethink on the matter came as a morale booster for Thomas, who heads the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau that has initiated action in corruption cases against some IAS officers.

The first of these was the arrest of additional chief secretary K. Padmakumar in September last year. Then a report cited preliminary evidence against additional chief secretary Tom Jose, who also heads the IAS officers' association, in a disproportionate assets case.

This was followed by an inquiry against K.M. Abraham, also an additional chief secretary, in a disproportionate assets case.

As a whole-time member of Sebi, Abraham had played an instrumental role in the inquiry against Subrata Roy of Sahara and enjoys a clean image. Although Abraham was given a clean chit by the vigilance department in December last year in the assets case, government sources believe that the inquiry order gifted the miffed IAS officers an excuse to incite rebellion against Thomas.

The entire issue acquired a political colour when an FIR was drawn up against additional chief secretary Paul Antony in a case in which former minister E.P. Jayarajan has been accused of nepotism.