Judicial intervention to rescue Kerala from Corrupt Communist’s

published on July 13, 2007

Courtesy:www.dailypioneer.com


 


Thiruvananthapuram:The Vigilance will investigate the slush money cases involving two senior officials of the CPM organ Desabhimani.


According to the Vigilance Special Court order, the cases to be probed are: The one relating to the former deputy general manager of Desabhimani K Venugopal who had allegedly received Rs 1 crore from tainted financial company Lis, and the other involving the newspaper’s general manager and CPI (M) leader EP Jayarajan who had allegedly received Rs 2 crore from “lottery king” Santiago Martin.

With this development, the inquiry, which till now has been limited to the party circles and at (the CPM-controlled) Home Ministry level, is going beyond the direct control of the party.

Thiruvananthapuram Vigilance Special Court judge K Sasidharan Nair, who on Friday ordered the Vigilance probe, has also agreed to the demand for an inquiry against Jayarajan in the Rs 2 crore deal, which had come to be known as ‘Desabhimani bond controversy’.

The court ordered the Vigilance director to probe the cases after detailed deliberations as to whether the Vigilance should directly collect evidence or a police probe would be suffice. The court had made it clear that the allegations about the financial deals would come under the purview of anti-corruption norms. The Vigilance director has been asked to file its report at the earliest.

Judge Sasidharan Nair in his judgement on the petition filed by Indian Lawyers’ Congress State president PA Raheem said that the case of Desabhimani’s former deputy general manager accepting a bribe of Rs 1 crore from Lis to settle a police case against the company was so serious that a Vigilance inquiry was necessary.

The court had completed the hearing on Thursday itself and had posted the case for orders on Friday.


At the same time, the controversy over the transfer of Rs 2 crore by Santiago Martin, a lottery agent of questionable repute, to the Desabhimani’s account had shaken the CPI (M) to its roots. Jayarajan had first referred to the money received from Martin as payment in bonds, but the very next day he changed his version saying that it was something like an advance payment against advertisements.

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