The Kerala High Court on Monday observed that con woman Saritha S Nair, one of the chief perpetrators of the infamous solar scam, could have misused the name of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for her fraudulent business even as scam victim Mallelil Sreedharan Nair asserted that he still stood firm in his charge against Chandy.
While considering a petition filed by rights activist Joy Kaitharam seeking direction to the police for retrieving the CCTV recordings of the Chief Minister’s office for the day of the alleged meeting between Chandy and Saritha Nair, Justice Haroon Al Rasheed asked what was wrong if the Chief Minister had met her and Sreedharan Nair at his office.
Justice Rasheed, who took up the scam-related case for the first time following a controversial shuffle of High Court judges and the cases they were handling by Chief Justice Manjula Chellur last week, asked the lawyers of the petitioner what purpose it would serve if the CCTV clippings of the Chief Minister’s office for a particular day were retrieved.
The judge asked whether Sreedharan Nair had given money to Saritha Nair for installing a solar power plant on the instructions of the Chief Minister and whether the scam victim had raised any such allegation. He added that evidence should be produced if there was any such charge from the part of Sreedharan Nair.
The case came to the bench of Justice Rasheed as it was transferred from that of Justice VK Mohanan, who had made some serious observations with regard to the alleged role of the Chief Minister’s office in the solar scam. Several legal experts and political leaders had expressed suspicion at the transfer of these cases to a new bench at this crucial juncture.
At the same time, Sreedharan Nair said in an affidavit submitted before the HC on Monday that he still stood by the contents of the statement he had made before a court in Pathanamthitta as per Section 164 of the CrPC. He had said in the statement that he and Saritha Nair had met Chandy at his office on July 9, 2012.
According to the affidavit, Sreedharan Nair had not told the police at any point of time that the Chief Minister had no involvement in the solar scam. He said the report the police had filed in the court in which such an indication had been made was contrary to the facts. What was presented to the court as his statement was the police’s own version and not his, he said.
Nair had reportedly said in his statement given in the Pathanamthitta court that he had cleared the last installment of the total Rs 40 lakh he had paid to Saritha Nair for the solar plant after getting personal assurance from the Chief Minister during the July 9, 2012 meeting at his office where the con woman and Chandy’s former aide Tenny Joppen were present.
Sreedharan Nair filed the affidavit as per an instruction given earlier by Justice Mohanan who had observed that the contents of the scam victim’s complaint were of very serious nature. However, Advocate General KP Dandapani has submitted a petition before Justice Rasheed with a request not to take up Sreedharan Nair’s affidavit.
Chief Minister Chandy reiterated in Delhi on Monday that he had not met Saritha Nair at his office with Sreedharan Nair. Chandy has been consistently claiming that he had met Sreedharan Nair on the particular date as he had come with a representation from the Quarry Owners’ Association but no woman named Saritha Nair was there during that meeting.
Meanwhile, police sources said that the SIT probing the solar scam would submit the chargesheets in all the scam-related cases within three weeks. They said probe had already been completed in 25 of the total 33 scam-related cases and chargesheets in eight cases would be filed this week. Chargesheets in 11 cases had already been submitted.