A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday rejected a plea for a CBI probe into the bribery charges levelled by bar owners against Kerala Congress (M) leader and Finance Minister K.M. Mani in connection with the reopening of closed bars.
The Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice A.M. Shaffique observed that the investigation was still in progress. There was no material to conclude that the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau was not carrying on a free and impartial investigation due to any extraneous reasons.
In fact, the investigation report was yet to be filed. At this stage, no ground had been made out to issue any directive to transfer the investigation of the case to the CBI, the court said. The court said that it could not draw a conclusion that the investigation was unreasonably delayed so as to warrant a CBI probe into the charges.
Closing the writ petition filed by Revolutionary Socialist Party (Bolshevik) leader A.V. Thamarakshan, the Bench said the investigation agency had not yet concluded its probe nor had it submitted any report so as to enable the court to examine the investigation process to form an opinion on whether the investigation was being conducted fairly or impartially.
Writ plea filed by A.V. Thamarakshan
No unreasonable delay, says court