NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed, for seven days, the investigation into an FIR against former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter Veena T and son-in-law Muhammed Riyaz in the CMRL-Exalogic payoff case, and allowed them to appeal before a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court against the order directing the FIR's registration.
A vacation bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana set aside the Division Bench's October 15 order, which had refused Vijayan, Veena T and Riyaz leave to appeal a single bench's direction to register the FIR. The bench held they could be treated as aggrieved parties since the single judge had found that the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) information disclosed a cognizable offence against them, even though they were not made parties to the original writ petition.
To enable the appeal to be filed, the apex court stayed the probe -- registered by Kerala's Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau under the Prevention of Corruption Act -- for seven days. It clarified the order was limited to the question of their right to appeal and was not an opinion on the merits of the case, leaving the Division Bench free to decide on any further relief independently.
"We are not against any investigation. We will maintain the FIR but no investigation until and unless the issues are decided by the appellate court," Justice Bagchi said during the hearing.
Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Vijayan, called it a "peculiar case" in which a single bench had heard what was effectively a public interest petition despite having no roster for it, and the Division Bench had then denied leave to appeal. Justice Mohana agreed that leave to appeal should have been granted.
Justice Bagchi flagged a central question in the case -- whether the ED's information under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act amounts to a mandate for registering an FIR, noting that the single judge's order was inconsistent on the point. He also said the state government could itself have appealed the single bench's order, since it had argued a preliminary inquiry was necessary, and asked why the petitioners could not be treated as aggrieved when the ED's information named them directly.
Advocate K M Shajahan, who filed the original writ petition, argued through counsel that the single bench's order was consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, and that an accused has no right to a hearing before an FIR is registered. Justice Mohana asked why the writ petition had been filed in haste right after the ED's press release, without making Vijayan, Veena T and Riyaz parties.
The case stems from an ED allegation that Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL) paid Exalogic Solutions, a company linked to Veena T, Rs 1.72 crore between 2017 and 2020 for no services rendered. The ED issued a press release on August 19 citing hawala transactions running into crores, and wrote to the Kerala police on September 7 seeking an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The state government instead ordered a preliminary inquiry by a Crime Branch special team; a single bench of the Kerala High Court later directed that the FIR be registered, holding that no preliminary inquiry was needed once the ED had shared its Section 66(2) information. The Division Bench had refused the trio leave to appeal that order on October 15 -- the refusal the Supreme Court has now set aside.
The matter will now be heard before the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court.