Appearing before the Justice (Retired) G Sivarajan Judicial Commission looking into the infamous solar scam on Monday, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy denied the charges levelled against him and his office in the scandal. This is the first time a Kerala Chief Minister had appeared before a judicial probe panel.
Chandy told the commission which held a sitting at the Government Guest House at Thycaud in Thiruvananthapuram that the Exchequer had not suffered any financial losses due to the solar scam but the panel’s lawyer disagreed with this. The Chief Minister said that neither he nor his office had provided any help to the perpetrators of the scam.
However, he admitted that there were lapses and lack of alertness on the part of some of the members of his personal staff and action had been taken against them once this came to notice. He said that he had never taken any step that could have helped the accused in the case and that it had been established that the Chief Minister’s letter pads they had used were fake.
Though he claimed that he had come to know about con woman Saritha S Nair and her former live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan, the two main accused in the solar scam, only after her arrest, he later said that she could have met him on three occasions. Photographs of Saritha whispering in his ears at a public programme at Kadaplamattam, Kottayam had appeared in the media.
About the controversial meeting between him and Biju Radhakrishnan, Chandy said that the fraudster had talked about some personal problems which he did not want to disclose before the commission. Biju had earlier alleged that Chandy had sexual relationship with Saritha but he had failed to produce evidences for this.
Most of the allegations with regard to the solar scam were against the Chief Minister, his office and his personal staff members. Also, the statements of Biju and the leaders from the Opposition were against Chandy and his office. It was in this context that the commission decided to record his statement and to cross-examine him.
Chandy told the commission that a special investigation team had been entrusted with the task of looking into all aspects of the solar scam and it had been fulfilling its task meticulously. But the commission pointed out that the probe team was bothered only about the cases of cheating of individuals by the perpetrators and had not considered the public interest in the affair.