The CBI will file an appeal in the Supreme Court against a Kerala High Court order exonerating Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and two others in the sensational Rs 374.5-crore SNC lavalin corruption case. The appeal will be submitted in the apex court within two weeks, according to reports. Pinarayi was seventh accused in the case.
The agency has decided to approach the Supreme Court in the context of criticisms being leveled against it for not challenging the High Court order that had upheld the discharge of Pinarayi and two other accused by the Special CBI Court in Thiruvananthapuram on November 15, 2013. The High Court order had come on August 23 last.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress, currently leading ‘Padayorukkam’, an all-Kerala march of the UDF against the ‘anti-people’ policies of the Central and State Governments, had the other day alleged that the CBI’s reluctance to appeal against Vijayan’s exoneration was proof of a secret pact between the CPI(M) and BJP over the SNC lavalin case.
Additional Solicitor General KM Natarajan who had appeared for the CBI in the High Court had informed it through a letter that the agency might file an appeal in the Supreme Court. The agency will submit the appeal against in the apex court before November 21 as 90 days would be completed since the issuance of the High Court order by that date.
Justice P Ubaid of the High Court had pronounced his order on a revision petition filed by the CBI challenging the discharge of six accused including Pinarayi in the corruption case by the trial court in Thiruvananthapuram in 2013. The judge had said there was no reason to believe that Pinarayi had entered into any conspiracy with respect to the 20-year-old corruption scandal.
The case pertained to the alleged corruption in the Rs 374.5 crore agreement between the Kerala State Electricity Board and the Canadian utility giant, SNC lavalin, for the repair and renovation of the Pallivasal, Senkulam and Panniyar hydel power projects. The agreement was finalised when Pinarayi was the State Power Minister between 1996 and 1998.
The then Congress-led UDF government had in 2006 proposed a CBI probe into the deal – the proposal was ratified by the High Court later — after the CAG found that the agreement had failed to deliver what was intended of that and had in effect led to the loss of the whole contract amount to the Exchequer.
The others whose discharge from the case was upheld by the High Court were first accused K Mohanachadran Nair, former member of the KSEB, and eighth accused A Francis, former joint secretary, Department of Power. Those who could be put to trial, as per the order, were a former chairman, a former member and a former chief engineer of the KSEB.
Justice Ubaid had observed that the CBI had adopted a “pick and choose” method to make out a case against Pinarayi and that it had been hunting him down.
He also said that CBI had not found anything to prove that Pinarayi had made any monetary benefit out of the deal with the Canadian company.