In an alleged move to protect Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in the infamous solar scam, the chargesheet filed in a case related to it by a special investigation team of the Kerala Police had neglected the confidential statement scam victim Sreedharan Nair had given under Section 164 of the CrPC, in which he had specifically mentioned Chandy’s role in the scandal.
The chargesheet filed in the District Magistrate Court in Pathanamthitta on October 25 and which appeared in the media on Wednesday, has no mention of the allegations Sreedharan Nair had leveled against Chandy in his statement given under oath before a magistrate.
Allegation has already come up that the police had deliberately avoided reference to the Section-164 statement with the intention of protecting the Chief Minister. As per the chargesheet, charges have been leveled only against con woman Saritha S Nair, her former husband Biju Radhakrishnan, chief scam perpetrators, and Chandy’s former aide Tenny Joppen.
Still, the police have avoided slapping the charge of criminal conspiracy for committing fraud on these three accused which is said to be part of yet another strategy to ensure that the case at no stage would reach Chandy’s doorstep. Saritha is the first accused while Biju and Tenny are the second and third accused respectively, as per the chargesheet.
The charges slapped on the three accused are for cheating, impersonation and destruction of evidence which would in no way warrant their linking to Chandy or his office. It is now obvious that the police had not taken the Section-164 statement of Sreedharan Nair into account but had based the 239-page chargesheet on the statements he had given them on other occasions.
The case pertains to the duping of Sreedharan Nair, a Congressman and granite quarry-crusher businessman from Pathanamthitta, of Rs 40 lakh by Saritha Nair who was running a fraudulent firm called Team Solar Energy Solutions by promising to install a 3-MW solar power plant for him at the Kinfra Park in Palakkad.
Saritha and Biju, who were facing 32 other cases of the same nature, had cheated Sreedharan Nair by convincing him about their close relationship with the Chief Minister, his office and his powerful aides. The Saritha connection had led to the expulsion of three of Chandy’s aides including Tenny Joppen.
Sreedharan Nair had said in the confidential statement that he had released the last installment of the `40 lakh to Saritha Nair after she arranged a meeting with the Chief Minister at his office in the State Secretariat on July 9, 2012 with the help of Joppen. As per the statement, Saritha was there in Chandy’s office during the meeting.
The Section-164 statement also said that the Chief Minister had encourage him to enter into business with Saritha and Biju by saying that all relevant subsidies given by the State and Centre for solar power projects could be arranged. Chandy also praised him for deciding to invest in solar power which was the only way to solve the State’s energy crisis, the statement said.
However, legal experts said that the chargesheet, prepared by neglecting the Section-164 statement — which had immense legal sanctity — would not be legally maintainable if Sreedharan Nair or someone else challenged it in the court. Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan has already announced his decision to intervene in the case.
“The police can prepare a chargesheet by neglecting such a statement and base their probe on the original complaint and other aspects. Still, if there is such a statement, it has huge legal value. In that sense, this chargesheet may not lead this case to closure,” said a senior lawyer of the Kerala High Court.