CBI to ask Kerala govt to probe state tourism dept in illegal star-rating case

The Central Bureau of Investigation, which is currently probing the illegal awarding of star ratings to eight hotels in Kerala by India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) officials, will soon send a recommendation to the Kerala government to look into the activities of the State Tourism Department which usually forwards the list of hotels to be cleared by the ITDC. Sources in the CBI said the files pertaining to the hotels were first cleared by a state committee comprising members of the State Tourism Department.

According to a report in The Times of India, it is the state committee that first looks into the application filed by a hotelier and checks whether the hotel has the mandatory requirements qualifying it for star rating. After this, the committee forwards the application to the ITDC for approval with a note. "We have started perusing the file of each hotel in detail to ascertain whether it had the required parameters to get clearance from the committee," CBI sources said.