In an indication that Kerala Finance Minister KM Mani may not be able to get out of the clutches of the bar bribery scam soon despite the alleged efforts being made at the highest levels to protect him, a court on Saturday rapped the State Vigilance by asking it to explain why it had taken advice from a private lawyer of the Supreme Court.
Judge John K Illikadan of the Special Vigilance Court, Thiruvananthapuram asked the Vigilance’s counsel whether the advice taken from the private lawyer had any legal validity. He also wanted to know about the origin of the instruction to the Government agency to seek legal advice from a private lawyer from outside the State.
While considering the Vigilance’s report seeking nod for winding up the probe against Mani and the petitions challenging it, the court wanted to know the logic behind the Vigilance’s action of seeking legal advice from a private lawyer by sidelining those like Advocate General and Director General of Prosecutions.
The Special Vigilance Judge’s queries to the Vigilance’s counsel came with reference to the Vigilance’s factual report and final report concerning the investigation into the charge against the Finance Minister that he had taken Rs1 crore as bribe from the State’s bar owners promising help to them in getting the licences renewed for their closed bars.
Superintendent of Police (Vigilance) R Sukesan, who had investigated the bar bribery scam, had earlier submitted a factual report which stated that strong evidences were available to show that Mani, chairman of the Kerala Congress (M), third biggest party in the Congress-led ruling UDF, could have taken bribe from bar owners and this had warranted his prosecution.
However, he had filed a final report in the court on July 8, obviously under instructions from Vigilance Director Vinson M Paul, in which he prayed for the court’s permission to close the investigation by stating that the agency had not got any legally maintainable evidences which established the bribery charge against the Minister.
Judge Illikadan wanted to know about the investigation on the basis of which the Vigilance had prepared its final report exonerating Mani, who was also the State’s law Minister. He asked whether any follow-up probe had been carried out between the filing of the factual report and the final report. He said the two reports had to be subjected to detailed examination.
The judge gave two days’ time to petitioners Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan and whistle-blower-bar owner Biju Ramesh, who had first leveled the charge of bribery against Mani, for collecting evidences for starting their arguments. The court will take up the case again on September 10.
As per Sukesan’s factual report, there were circumstantial and scientific evidences to establish that Mani could have taken bribe from bar owners. According to him, evidences showed that bar owners could have handed over Rs15 lakh to Mani on March 22, 2014 at his home in Pala, Kottayam and Rs10 lakh at his official residence in Thiruvananthapuram on April 2 last year.
It had also said that the evidences were strong enough to subject Mani to prosecution. However, this report was rejected by the Vigilance Director on the basis of the legal advices he had received.