The Congress-led UDF Cabinet of Kerala on Wednesday decided to appoint retired High Court judge G Sivarajan as the judicial commission to probe the infamous solar scam in which Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, his Government and several top Congress leaders and Ministers were allegedly involved.
The CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF, under whose insistence Chandy had announced a judicial probe into the scandal, responded negatively to the decision saying that it was not in agreement with it, alleging that this was yet another move on the part of Chandy to protect himself and others involved in the scam.
After a Cabinet meeting which took the decision to appoint Sivarajan as the judicial commission, Chief Minister Chandy told newsmen in Thiruvananthapuram that the term of probe would be six months. Sivarajan is presently chairman of the State Backward Communities Development Commission.
Stating that the Opposition’s objection to the commission and its terms of reference was linked to the coming lok Sabha election, Chandy said it was the former lDF Government which had appointed him in his present position. There were no legal hurdles for him to function as the commission of inquiry and as head of the backward communities panel simultaneously, he said.
The Government had decided to engage a retired judge for the probe into the scam on the ground that the High Court had repeatedly refused to spare the services of a sitting judge.
However, sources said that the Cabinet had not even considered the Opposition’s suggestion to try for getting a sitting judge from outside the State or a district judge for the purpose.
The Opposition reiterated its allegation that the High Court had refused to spare a sitting judge mainly because the Government had not tried to convince it of such a necessity. The left said that the High Court would have granted the request if the Government had specifically said that the Chief Minister and his office would come under the purview of the inquiry.
Chandy had announced a judicial probe into the scam on August 13 at the peak of an lDF siege to the State Secretariat but had at no point of time said that he or his office would be included in the terms of reference. Even when the terms of reference were finalised, the Government had refused to specifically say that Chandy and his office would come under its purview.
Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday refused to agree to the request of con woman Saritha S Nair, main perpetrator of the solar scam, to quash some of the 33 cases of fraud related to the scandal on the basis of the argument that these cases had been settled out of the court by returning the money and the complainants did not have any complaint anymore.
The court asked the lawyer of Saritha Nair to explain the source of money for settling the cases. After Saritha’s arrest on June 3 over cases related to the scam, it was found that there was no money in any of her bank accounts or those of her ex-husband Biju Radhakrishnan, the master scam perpetrator.
The court asked the lawyer whether cases related to a scandal in which politicians and Ministers were alleged to have been involved could be closed because the fraudster and complainants had come to a settlement. It said that the two cases which formed part of a scam involving a total of 33 registered cases could not be considered as ordinary instances of fraud.
The court ruled that no case could be accepted as settled at this point of time as the matter involved immense public interest adding that it could consider the request for closure after all the 33 cases were settled. The case would be taken up again next week.