The Special Vigilance Court, Thiruvananthapuram, has acquitted a former staff member and office bearers of Kulanada Service Co-operative Bank in Pathanamthitta, who were arraigned as accused in a fund misappropriation case. Special Judge M V Rajakumara ordered the acquittal of P T Jacob and K S Remabhai for want of evidence.

According to the case during 2005-2006, late K Ramachandran, who was the President of the bank, P T Jacob, the Secretary and Remabhai, who was the cashier/clerk hatched a criminal conspiracy to misappropriate the money and they made false entries in the registers and records. The prosecution argued that they illegally withdrew the money from the bank account and misappropriated the funds without accounting it in cash book. The Crime Branch probed the case and filed the charge sheet in 2016.

The court observed that the prosecution could not prove any of the offences. Advocate Sekhar G Thampi, who appeared for Remabhai, told the court that it was insufficient to prove that the accused had made false entries and misappropriation of money, even if there were mere wrong entries or incorrect entries in the account books, and cited that there was no evidence to prove forgery of documents.