Kochi: The Kerala High Court here on Friday served notice to 12 people including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his daughter T Veena over the illegal payment of Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL) to Veena's firm Exalogic Solutions. The court issued the order while considering a plea seeking a vigilance probe into the allegations.
Kalamassery native Gireesh Babu filed the plea before the court citing the details of a document from the Income Tax Settlement Board. But unfortunately, the petitioner died when the court started considering his plea. The Court reportedly initiated a hearing into the plea after the amicus curiae gave the green signal to continue the case despite the petitioner's demise.
Incidentally, Babu approached the Vigilance Court when Malayala Manorama daily a few months ago came out with a report that the findings of the Interim Board for Settlement-II of the Income Tax department, New Delhi indicated that offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 were committed by the accused persons.
The report pointed out that an "illegal payment" of Rs 1.72 crore was made by Kochi based mining company CMRL to Exalogic Solutions Private Limited, the IT firm owned by Veena and officials of the CMRL had testified that the payment was made and no services were offered.
While considering the plea, the High Court suo motu impleaded CM and others in the case and issued an order to serve notice to them.
The revision petition was filed against the dismissal of the complaint by the Court of the Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance) in Muvattupuzha.
The Court observed that if notice is not issued to parties who are arrayed as accused, then it would go against the recent decision of the Supreme Court.
“Notice to the parties arrayed as accused, suo moto impleaded and ordered notice”, Justice K Babu ordered on Friday.
Apart from the CM, his daughter and her firm, other public servants such as the former leader of the Opposition and Congress MLA Ramesh Chennithala, MLA Kunhalikutty, former Minister for Public Works VK Ibrahim Kunju, and A Govindan have also been named as other accused in the matter for having received illegal gratification; while CMRL, its Managing Director Sathivilas Narayan Kartha Sasidharan Kartha (9th accused), the Chief Financial Officer K.S. Suresh Kumar (10th accused), and the are alleged to have given out bribes for illegal gratification.
(With Live Law Inputs)
