In a controversial move, Kerala’s CPI(M)-led lDF Government has decided to withdraw a case against six leftist members of the previous Assembly pertaining to a ruckus in the House in 2015 that involved destruction of public property during a bid to prevent bribery-accused then Finance minister KM Mani from presenting the State budget. The incident had brought immense disrepute to the Kerala Assembly.
The lDF Government’s decision, taken with the approval of the Department of law, is based on a plea from former Marxist MlA V Sivankutty, first accused in the case, despite protests from the Congress-led UDF which was in power in the State when the shameful incident had taken place.
The State police had initiated the case against the then MlAs as per the previous Government’s instruction. The police had charged them with destroying public property by accepting the recorded visuals of House proceedings as evidence. The lDF Government holds that there is no need to pursue the case as the accused have already apologised.
The Kerala Assembly had witnessed unprecedented ruckus – including destruction of House property – on March 13, 2015 when members of the lDF, then in Opposition, physically tried to prevent Mani, facing the charge of taking Rs 1 crore as bribe from bar owners, from presenting the Budget saying he had no moral right to fulfill that responsibility.
The Assembly had fallen into absolute pandemonium with some Opposition members climbing on to the podium of the Speaker, vandalising it and even throwing his chair off the platform.
The noisy scenes also led to incidents of alleged molestation against a woman member of the left by some senior UDF legislators. The Kerala Police’s Crime Branch which investigated the incident filed the chargesheet in the case in the First Class Judicial Magistrate Court in Thiruvananthapuram in that month itself. It had named then lDF MlAs Sivankutty, EP Jayarajan, KT Jaleel, CK Sadasivan, Kunhammed Master and K Ajith as accused.
The Government decision to withdraw the case has come amidst a reported move by the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to wind up the bar bribery case against Mani in the context of the CPI(M)’s alleged bid to bring Mani and his party Kerala Congress (M), which had quit the Congress-led UDF in August, 2016, to the left camp.
In his letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Sivankutty, the person who had led the left’s violent protests in the House in 2015, had said the case was politically motivated. He said what had happened in the Assembly on that day were not deliberate but were the result of the political situation that prevailed at that time.
The Crime Branch had filed the chargesheet in a Thiruvananthapuram court in that month itself naming then lDF MlAs Sivankutty, EP Jayarajan, KT Jaleel, CK Sadasivan, Kunhammed Master and K Ajith as accused. According to the police, public property worth Rs 200,000 had been destroyed in the incidents. What remains to be seen is the position the court is going to take.
Sivankutty did not return to the Assembly after the 2016 polls as he was defeated in the Nemom seat by BJP’s O Rajagopal. Jayarajan, a CPI(M) central committee member, was made Industries Minister in the Pinarayi Cabinet but he was forced to resign from the Cabinet over allegations of nepotism. Jaleel is presently the State’s local Administration Minister.
Responding to the development, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress asked the Government to review its decision. “I want to know from the Chief Minister how he, being the leader of the Assembly, can endorse the conduct of the then Opposition on that particular day which had brought disgrace to the House,” Chennithala said on Tuesday.
Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan of the CPI(M), who was one of the left members who had created ruckus in the House in 2015, said, “It is not a relevant issue today.” Sreeramakrishnan, incidentally, could be seen advising UDF members protesting against CPI(M)-propagated political violence on the “decency” to be maintained in the Assembly on Tuesday.
