Kerala’s Congress-led UDF Cabinet on Friday endorsed the proposal for a judicial probe by a sitting High Court judge into the solar scam in which Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was allegedly involved but he reiterated that neither he nor his office would come under its purview even as the High Court questioned the manner in which the police were probing the scam.
Talking to mediapersons after a Cabinet meeting, Chandy said that his office need not come under the terms of reference of the judicial inquiry as the Government had nothing to do with the scam. He said the State exchequer had not lost “even a single paisa” in the scam and therefore there was no situation that necessitated his resignation as Chief Minister either.
Chandy had made this point clear when he had announced the decision to launch a judicial probe into the scam on Tuesday in the middle of a massive siege laid by the Opposition lDF to the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram
demanding his resignation as well as a judicial inquiry. The lDF suspended the siege a day after it started after Chandy announced the probe.
Chandy, however, said on Friday that the terms of reference of the judicial probe would be decided after discussions with the Opposition. The lDF was of the position that it would not discuss the terms of reference with the Government but would not accept the probe if the Chief Minister and his office were not included in its purview.
“The Opposition has not so far been able to convincingly cite any link between the scam and the Chief Minister’s office. But the Government has an open mind about all matters. It would certainly listen to the Opposition if they make any suggestions,” Chandy said.
The Opposition wants Chandy and his office to come under the probe’s purview as the main allegation is that the several of the fraudulent deals related to the scam had originated in the Chief Minister’s office and the perpetrators had carried out the operations with his blessings and assistance of his former aides.
Scam victim Mallelil Sreedharan Nair had told the court that he had given Rs40 lakh to Saritha S Nair, one of the main perpetrators of the scam, after the Chief Minister personally gave him assurances on the credibility of her institution in her presence and that of Chandy’s former aide Tenny Joppan on July 9, 2012 at his office. Joppan is presently behind the bars in the case.
At the same time, the Government postponed the mass contact programmes of the Chief Minister scheduled to be held in the coming days in Kannur, Kasaragod and Wayanad districts reportedly in the context of the Opposition’s threat not to allow him to attend the programme and to block him wherever he went as part of its agitation over the scam.
Meanwhile, the High Court severely criticised the way Additional DGP A Hemachandran, head of the Kerala Police’s special investigation team probing the solar scam, was going about it. The court had earlier this week expressed doubt whether the Director General of Police had the authority to constitute such an SIT as per rules.
Justice SS Satheeshchandran on Friday questioned the Advocate General over the exact role ADGP Hemachandran was playing in the solar scam probe. Pointing out that it was other officials who had submitted the charge sheets in some of the 30-odd scam-related cases so far he asked who the actual investigating officer was.
When the Advocate General claimed that Hemachandran was the head of the SIT coordinating the entire probe, the judge wanted to know the powers given to the ADGP who was working “from behind the screen”. The Government had received flak from the court several times earlier over the cases related to the solar scam.