The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on Thursday registered a case against former Cooperation Minister C.N. Balakrishnan and seven others over the alleged misappropriation of incentives obtained from liquor companies to Consumerfed.
The case follows a quick verification carried out by the VACB on a direction from the Vigilance Court in Thrissur.
Former Consumer- fed president Joy Thomas, former Additional Registrar with the Corpo- ration Department V. Sanilkumar, former Consumerfed MD Regi G. Nair, Consumerfed former Chief Manager R. Jayakumar, former Regional Managers M. Shaji and Sukumaran, and Consumerfed former Manager (IMFL section) Sujithakumari have been also arraigned as accused in the case.
The case would be probed by K.R. Venugopalan, Deputy Superintendent, VACB Special Cell.
The VACB, in its quick verification earlier, found a drastic reduction in incentives obtained from the purchase of Indian Made Foreign Liquors (IMFL) to Consumerfed outlets during the period 2010-2015. When the value of liquor sales by Consumerfed was Rs.221 crore in 2003-2004 the incentive obtained from the manufacturers was Rs.75 lakh. Though liquor sales rose to an all-time high of Rs.597 crore in 2010 and to Rs.1,067 crore in 2015, the highest incentive recorded during the period was Rs.6.4 lakh.
