Unhappiness is said to be spreading among the senior personnel of the Kerala Police over the State Home Department’s act of ordering a Crime Branch probe against R Sukesan, Superintendent of Police (Vigilance), by charging him with suspected conspiracy in connection with the infamous bar bribery scam involving several Ministers, which has stunned the Congress-led UDF Government.
Many senior police officials are of the view that the probe against Sukesan, often described as one of the most experienced investigators in the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB), is sure to affect the morale of the force. According to them, a “double justice system” is prevailing in the State’s Police Department and Sukesan’s case is a telling example of that.
“(Such) illogical probes and actions can destroy the morale of the police force,” said Jacob Thomas, a DGP who had fallen out with Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s Government due primarily to his firm stand over the probe into the bar bribery scam. Two kinds of justices were prevailing in the State and some officials were getting special consideration, he alleged.
Pointing out that the investigation into the scam was under the court’s consideration, Jacob Thomas said that it was up to the court to decide on the action to be taken against the investigating officer if there had been any lapses on his part. It was not proper for others to carry out actions which the court should take, he added.
Several other officials were not as frank over the issue as Jacob Thomas was but they did share the view expressed by him. A middle-level official who did not want his name to appear in print for obvious reasons said he would henceforth try his level best to avoid taking up the responsibility of the investigation of any case which had anything to do with the Government.
The Government ordered the Crime Branch probe against Sukesan on Friday on the basis of a recommendation from Additional DGP (Vigilance) N Shankar Reddy that certain voice recordings contained on a CD showed that the SP could have entered into a conspiracy with Biju Ramesh, whistleblower in the scam, to implicate certain members of the Chandy Cabinet.
The probe against Sukesan was ordered within a week of Biju Ramesh openly accusing Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who also holds the Vigilance portfolio, of taking Rs2 crore from Kerala Bar Hotels’ Association, when he was State Congress chief. Biju also alleged that Health Minister VS Sivakumar, a loyalist of Chennithala, had taken Rs25 lakh from the bar owners.
Kerala Congress (M) chairman KM Mani, charged with taking Rs1-crore bribe from bar owners, had resigned as Finance Minister on November 10. The Vigilance probe against him was carried out by Sukesan, who had filed a factual report saying that there were enough circumstantial and other evidences to prosecute Mani.
According to the Vigilance Director’s report to the Home Ministry, the voice recordings on a CD Biju had given to a Magistrate as evidence in the scam had shown that he and Sukesan had been acquaintances for a long time. It is alleged that Sukesan had asked Biju to raise allegations of bribery against four Ministers and prompted him to raise the allegations through the media.
Critics of the Government point out that the Vigilance Director and the Home Department had moved against Sukesan by taking recordings found on a CD as evidence while they have consistently refused to grant the evidential value of the other recordings on the same CD, which justified implication of Ministers in the scam.
It is also pointed out that DGP TP Senkumar had rejected a demand for probe against State Congress general secretary Thampanoor Ravi, a confidant of the Chief Minister, who, according to some voice recordings, had tried to tutor Saritha S Nair, main accused in the solar scam, over phone on how to depose before the judicial commission probing it by protecting Chandy.
“This is where the issue of the so-called double justice comes,” said a retired police official. “An Inspector General who had destroyed crucial evidences in the solar scam is still continuing in his position while Sukesan is being allegedly victimized over the bar scam probe. If anybody accuses the Government of politicising the police force, he cannot be faulted,” he added.