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The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) court in Thiruvananthapuram has ordered a probe against senior leaders of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in Kerala for spending millions of rupees in litigations at the cost of the exchequer. |
The defendants in the case are former chief minister V S Achuthanandan, the leader of opposition in the Assembly, former home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the deputy floor leader, former law minister M Vijayakumar, state unit secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and controversial middleman T G Nandakumar, who is close to Achuthanandan.
They are accused of spending around Rs38mn for hiring top criminal lawyers from the Supreme Court to fight personal interest cases instead of using the services of some 70 lawyers who are on the government’s payroll.
Senior lawyers like R K Anand, Shanti Bhooshan, C S Vaidyanathan, Rajinder Sachar, Amarendra Sharan, A Majumdar, Debi Prasad Pal, Jaideep Gupta and R Venkata Ramani were “imported” to fight cases like the Rs3.74bn SNC-Lavalin in which Vijayan stands accused.
Other cases for which services of top lawyers were hired in the Kerala High Court include the ice-cream parlour sex scandal, in which present Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty was allegedly involved and the dispute with private lottery dealers.
The petitioner, Raju Purankazha, alleged that Achuthanandan and Vijayan had brought in lawyers from the apex court to counter prosecution arguments in cases with political undertones.
Anand and Vaidyanathan flew down to Kochi to oppose the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the SNC-Lavalin case during the Left Democratic Front (LDF) rule from 2006-2011. They were paid a total of Rs18mn.
For opposing the CBI probe in the lottery scam, the lawyers were paid Rs4.5mn and Rs1.5mn was paid for legal advice on the ice-cream parlour sex scandal case.
The court, observing that prima facie there was a case, ordered the VACB to investigate and file a report within three months. The court will take up the case on October 22 after receiving the report.
Reacting to the court order, Balakrishnan said the move was to settle political scores as the CPI-M has been demanding Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s resignation after some of his staffers were found to be in close touch with an accused involved in the “solar scam”.
Meanwhile Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has written to Pinarayi Vijayan seeking his suggestion for a probe panel to investigate the allegations about webcasting and closed circuit television cameras installed in his office.
Citing an earlier statement by the chief minister that anyone was free to inspect visuals captured by the cameras at the Chief Minister’s Office, Vijayan, Achuthanandan, Balakrishnan and other opposition leaders alleged that Chandy was hiding visuals of con-woman Saritha Nair visiting him.
Chandy said the webcam had no recording facility while the CCTV cameras stored the visuals captured for a maximum 14 days. He offered to include a nominee of the opposition on the three-member panel of inquiry to be formed.