Kochi/Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government on Wednesday moved the High Court to quash an FIR filed by the CBI, naming 'Life Mission', a housing project of the state envisaging total housing for the homeless in Wadakkanchery, Thrissur, for alleged violation of Foreign Contribution (Regulations) Act.
The state cabinet had earlier in the day entrusted Life Mission CEO and the Local Self Government (LSG) Principal Secretary to take necessary legal action. The cabinet decision came after Advocate General C P Sudhakara Prasad gave the green signal for the move.
The CEO in his petition submitted that the FIR was "illegal, arbitrary and nothing but an abuse of the process of law and is, therefore, liable to be quashed".
The CBI had filed an FIR in a Kochi court under Section 120 B of the IPC and Section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 on a complaint by Wadakancherry Congress MLA Anil Akkara, listing Santosh Eappen, managing director of Unitac Builder, Kochi, as the first accused and Sane Ventures as the second accused.
Akkara alleged that there has been violation of the FCRA act by the Life Mission, private companies and others.
The Life Mission CEO submitted that the complaint was that Unitac and Sane Ventures, two companies which had undertaken the construction based on the agreement entered into with them by Red Crescent, had directly accepted foreign contributions from Red Crescent, which is a foreign agency.
"The said allegation in the complaint and the FIR do not make out any offence under the Act," he said.
The petition also said the companies which signed an agreement with the Red Crescent do not come under the categoriesof persons prohibited from receiving any foreign contribution as per Section 3 of the FCRA.
It also said the registration of FIR "in haste, without even conducting any preliminary enquiry, clearly reveals the malafides behind the same".
"The CBI cannot investigate any offence other than the offence referred under the Act. The CBI probe, stretching beyond the offences under the Act, particularly going by the nature of the allegations in the complaint, was an attempt to overcome the statutory prescription mandated by Section 17 A of the Prevention of Corruption Act," the petition said.
However, the CBI has already begun its investigation. It has issued a notice to the Life Mission CEO U V Jose asking him to produce six documents related to the project. The documents have to be submitted before October 5. The agency has also asked the Life Mission officials to recover the documents they had handed over to the state Vigilance, which had also begun a probe into the Wadakkanchery project.
On September 29, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala had alleged that the government was planning to issue an ordinance to thwart the CBI probe into the Life Mission project.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, however, said that the government was planning no such move. "Certain states ruled by the Congress have taken such a stand. But we have no thought of any such measure," the chief minister said. "The only piece of legislation that is now under consideration is a stronger law to prevent atrocities against women," he added.
Top LDF leaders like CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran and LDF convenor A Vijayaraghavan were of the opinion that the CBI probe was politically motivated, and Vijayaraghvan went a step further and said that the CBI could not be allowed to run loose.
Even when the anti-CBI sentiment was gathering force within the CPM and the LDF, the chief minister had consistently maintained that his government could take a stand on the CBI probe only after examining the legal issues involved.
The original provocation, sources said, was the Centre's move to announce the CBI probe behind the Kerala government's back. Normally, a CBI probe is issued at the request of a state government. Perhaps to do away with such a convention, the CBI had taken over the Life Mission case citing Foreign Exchange Regulation Act violations, for which the CBI can act independently.
Legal experts were also of the opinion that Kerala, like Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Bengal and Chhattisgarh, could withdraw the advance permission granted to the CBI to probe corruption cases under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act.
The ordinance route has been ruled out as it could have caused some political embarrassment for the ruling party.
