More documents to nail Pinarayi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI has reportedly furnished more information, besides the evidence already submitted, about CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s role in the SNC-Lavalin case, to Governor R S Gavai.

The additional information, CBI sources said, was provided in response to the Governor’s request for more details in the wake of the Advocate- General’s opinion that there were no firm grounds for the prosecution of Vijayan in the SNC-Lavalin case.

The Governor’s Office, despite repeated queries, refused to clarify if the Governor had received the said report from the CBI. All senior officials in the Governor’s Office, including the special secretary and private secretary to the governor, said they were “in the dark” about the issue and that only the secretary to the governor was in the know of things. The Secretary, however, refused to pick up his land and mobile phones. The report, prepared by CBI Chennai unit Joint Director Ashok Kumar and DIG Kanthaswamy, is said to have reached the Raj Bhavan through e-mail and by registered post on Saturday. The report, CBI sources said, contains documents and transcripts which confirms Vijayan’s complicity in the case.

Governor R S Gavai had met with CBI officials two weeks ago and presented them with the AG’s observations.

Though the officials had offered a point-by-point rebuttal, the Governor wanted a detailed report with all the relevant documents attached.

The report fully contradicts the observations of Advocate-General C P Sudhakara Prasad. The AG had, in his advice to the cabinet that was forwarded to the Governor, stated that there was not enough proof to implicate Pinarayi Vijayan in the case. The AG had also observed that the CBI had failed to prove the conspiracy angle against former KSEB chairman and the first accused in the case, K Mohanachandran, and the former joint secretary (Power) and the tenth accused, A Francis.

In its report, the CBI was highly critical of these observations. The latest report is said to contain documents that the AG did not have access to.

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