The Special Vigilance Court in Thrissur, Kerala, on Thursday ordered a quick verification (QV) against Congress’s Cooperation Minister CN Balakrishnan and several others over the corruption that allegedly took place in the Kerala State Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (Consumerfed) between 2010 and 2015.
Special Vigilance judge SS Vassan, who had stirred a hornets’ nest on January 23 by ordering registration of an FIR against Congress’s Excise Minister K Babu in the bar bribery case, ordered the quick verification of allegations on the basis of a petition filed by rights activist George Vattukulam. The Vigilance Director has been asked to file the QV report within 45 days.
Apart from Balakrishnan, a confidant of Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, head of the State Congress’s ‘I’ group, three former officials of Consumerfed - former chairman Joy Thomas, former managing director Riji G Nair and former chief manager R Jayakumar - also will face quick verification, as per the court order.
The petition filed by Vattukulam alleged that Consumerfed had suffered a loss of Rs 28.81 crore as the incentives on the purchase of liquor for the federation’s retail booze outlets were not included in the accounts and a bribe of Rs 5 crore was involved in this. It also referred to the alleged corruption in the introduction of mobile sales units of Consumerfed.
As per this, the preparation of the Triveni mobile units of Consumerfed was done at a garage in the Minister’s constituency and this involved corruption to the tune of Rs3 lakh per bus. Quick verification will also be held over the allegation of corruption at the retail outlet of the Consumerfed at Poojappura, Thiruvananthapuram.