Thalassery: The Thalassery Vigilance court on Friday sought clarifications from the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on the preliminary investigation report of the probe into the alleged irregularities in land acquisition for the Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) and felling of trees at the airport site. The court also directed the agency to submit a fresh report in a month's time.
The VACB DySP, who is in charge of the investigation, was told to examine whether there was violation of norms in fixing land price and lease rent. The officer was also instructed to check the alleged irregularities in the land lease agreement.
The court issued the order on the basis of a petition filed by K V James, a resident of Iritty in Kannur, against former chief minister Oommen Chandy, former ports minister K Babu, and some of the top KIAL officials and government servants.
The others who were named as respondents in the complaint were former principal secretaries Tom Jose (aviation), V P Joy (finance), former Kinfra managing director Ramnath and KIAL MD K Chandramauli, L&T manager Sajinlal, and former chief secretaries V J Kurian, and Jiji Thomson.
The preliminary inquiry report submitted by the VACB had given a clean chit to the accused, saying it could not establish a prima facie case against any of them as they were not holding those positions when the alleged irregularities took place.
According to the complainant, violation of rules in handing over of the land acquired by Kinfra to the KIAL caused heavy losses to the state exchequer. The government also incurred loss due to lapses in awarding the contract to fell trees at the site, he alleged.
"The land was handed over to the KIAL ignoring the objection raised by the Revenue Department. The Environment Ministry gave the permission to fell only 3041 trees at the site, but around 1 lakh full-grown trees were illegally cut down before the land was handed over to the KIAL," the complaint said.