EK Baburaj, one of the several people who had lost money in Kerala’s infamous solar scam, has accused Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy of having direct links with Biju Radhakrishnan, chief perpetrator of the scam, and his former wife Saritha S Nair, who acted as a con woman in the fraudulent deals in the name of implementing solar power projects.
“Biju had showed to me authentication letters issued in his company’s favour in the Chief Minister’s letter pad which bore his signature. I am not familiar with the Chief Minister’s actual signature but senior lawyers told me the signature was indeed that of Chandy,” Baburaj, whom the fraudsters had duped of `1.9 crore, told a TV channel.
Another scam victim Mallelil Sreedharan Nair, a quarry owner and a Congressman, had earlier charged Chandy with giving him personal assurances on the “legitimacy” of Saritha’s solar power company during a meeting at the Chief Minister’s Office in the State Secretariat at which the con woman also was present. Chandy has consistently denied this allegation.
Nair had in a statement given in the court under Section 164 of the CrPC said that he had paid the last instalment towards the `40 lakh he had given to Saritha after getting this assurance from Chandy at the meeting on July 9, 2012. Chandy had admitted that he had met Nair on that day but claimed that Saritha was not in his office.
Baburaj, the second person in Kerala to file a complaint in connection with the infamous scam, said that Biju and Saritha had spoken in detail about their close connections with Chandy. “Biju had on several occasions held telephonic conversations with the Chief Minister in front of me. He had also promised to arrange a meeting with the Chief Minister,” he said.
Biju had even told him that the business he was entering into was worth `830 crore and 30 per cent of this amount was to be paid to the Chief Minister in commission, which he would re-invest in Team Solar, the “company” of Biju and Saritha, Baburaj, whose entire family is settled in America, said.
“But I must admit that there was no way for me to be sure whether Biju was speaking over the phone with Chandy himself or the other things he had told me in connection with Chandy, but I believed in it. However, the case of the letters he had showed me was different as they bore the Chief Minister’s signature,” he told the channel.
Though Chandy had in June itself admitted that he had known Biju and had held talks with him in 2012 at the Government Guest House in Kochi, he had been maintaining that he had never known or met Saritha. However, this claim collapsed after photographs showing Saritha and Chandy’ together at a public programme appeared in the media some weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team of the Kerala Police probing the scam is planning to subject Sreedharan Nair to a polygraph procedure. The Deputy Superintendent of Police, Chengannur has issued a notice to the Nair, based in Konni, Pathanamthitta, asking him whether he was ready for the lie detection examination.
Additional DGP A Hemachandran, head of the probe team, had last week submitted in the High Court that Nair had told them that he did not think Chandy had any involvement in the deals of Saritha. Nair, however, rejected the police’s version as a lie and reiterated that he stood by his statement given in the court.