The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday reiterated before the CBI Special Court here that it had not obtained any clinching evidence of undue pecuniary advantage made by Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan or of Speaker G. Karthikeyan’s involvement in the multi-crore SNC-Lavalin corruption case.
CBI senior prosecutor V.N. Anil Kumar, during a hearing on petitions demanding further investigation into the case to ascertain the involvement of the two political leaders, said the earlier investigations had found no evidence on this aspect and therefore, there was no need for further investigation in the case.
‘Unnecessary petitions’
The CBI, while lamenting that unnecessary petitions were affecting the smooth progress of several high profile cases including the Lavalin case, pointed out that there were mismatches in the statements provided by Deepak Kumar, the witness who had stated that Mr. Vijayan, the seventh accused in the case, had taken bribe and also that Mr. Karthikeyan was involved in the scam. As such, it was not necessary to probe these angles again.
CBI Special Judge T.S.P. Moosath also heard arguments on various petitions related to the case filed by a lawyer, P. Nagaraj, and Crime Editor T.P. Nandakumar before posting the rest of the hearing to September 14.
A petition filed by the Thiruvananthapuram- based EMS Samskarika Samithi is expected to be taken up for hearing on that day.
The petitioners, including the Samithi, have also moved the court to examine the involvement of the former Ministers Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who was a member of the Kerala State Electricity Board during the alleged scam, and the former Finance Minister T. Sivadasa Menon, in the case.
C. Sreedharan Nair appeared on behalf of Mr. Vijayan in the case, which had seen last month the court allowing the CBI two more months to produce all the accused in the case, notably the former senior vice-president of SNC-Lavalin, Klaus Triendl, who is arraigned as the sixth accused in the case.
The case is related to alleged irregularities in the awarding of a contract to the Canadian company to renovate the Pallivasal, Sengulam and Panniyar hydro-electric projects.
