A special court here on Saturday set a deadline of January 20 for the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) to report on the “truthfulness or falseness” of the allegations raised by a private person against Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Intelligence, R. Sreelekha.
Paichira Nawaz, the de-facto complainant in the case, told Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge A. Badharudeen that the time legally accorded to the agency to complete the inquiry had long expired. He pointed out that a junior officer was conducting the precursory inquiry against a ranking officer.
Legal adviser C.C. Augustine told the court that the agency would require some more time to wrap up the inquiry. The preliminary probe was at its final stages.
Vigilance investigators said that a parallel inquiry was on to verify the truth of Mr. Nawaz’s allegation in open court that two Special Branch officers had coerced him to withdraw the petition against Ms. Sreelekha. The agency had recorded Mr. Nawaz statement on Friday.
The inquiry against Ms. Sreelekha related to the 2011-14 period when she served as State Transport Commissioner (STC).
The probe revolved around an internal report that “faulted” Ms. Sreelekha “for” serious wrongdoings as the STC. Tomin. J. Thachankery, who succeeded her as STC, had authored the controversial report and recommended a Vigilance inquiry.
The complainant had also “faulted” Chief Secretary S.M. Vijayanand for allegedly sitting on the report despite it being referred to him by Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran in July. Mr. Vijayanand was also a respondent in the case.
