Surprised by the makeup and colourful dresses con woman Saritha S Nair, chief perpetrator of the infamous solar scam, used to don while being brought to various courts from prison, the Kerala High Court on Thursday asked the Government whether she was being provided beauticians’ services in jails.
Justice Haroon Al Rashid of the High Court asked the Government why Saritha was being given such extravagant facilities in prisons. The judge sarcastically asked the Government to explain the sources from where Saritha was getting different saris every time she was being taken to a court from the prison.
The judge’s questions came when he was considering a petition seeking CBI probe into the land scam involving Salim Raj, former gunman of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Salim and certain other top aides of Chandy had allegedly helped Saritha in perpetrating the solar scam. Also, Chandy himself had been accused of direct involvement in it.
That Saritha used to appear in cinema-like makeup and costly saris on her trips from prisons to various courts had surprised entire Kerala. A list drawn up by the special investigation team of the Kerala Police which had probed the scam-related cases had shown that Saritha had bought saris worth `13 lakh in two years using the money she had amassed through the fraud.
The solar scam pertains to the duping of several people of large sums of money (`6 crore in total, say the police) by Saritha and her former live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan with the help of Chandy’s former aides by promising the victims to install solar power projects with all possible subsidies and concessions.
According to the SIT, Saritha and Biju had used the entire money they collected through the fraud for living in luxury and showing generosity to their dear ones. For example, a single three-day trip to Ooty by Saritha had cost Rs 500,000 while Biju had gifted `1.21 crore to his girlfriend Shalu Menon, actress-dancer, for constructing a house.