The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on Saturday opened a criminal investigation against former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and former Chief Secretary Bharath Bhushan on the suspicion of them having unlawfully helped a realtor appropriate prime public land to construct a high-rise condominium at Pattoor in Thiruvananthapuram.
Legal adviser, VACB, C.C. Augustine told The Hindu that both the suspects stand formally accused of having abused their official positions to confer undue pecuniary advantage to the builder, T.S. Ashok. He is also an accused in the case along with two Kerala Water Authority (KWA) officials. The suspects have also been accused of conspiracy, forgery, use of forged documents as original ones, and manipulation and theft of revenue records.
Case filed by VS
The case centred around Administrative Reforms Commission chairperson V.S. Achuthanandan’s complaint in 2012 that the suspects had illegally changed the orientation of a 1960s sewerage main that bisected the builder’s property to help the realtor profitably develop the land and slyly add 22 cents of prime public land to his ambitious enterprise.
In the process, Mr. Chandy and Mr. Bhushan had “overstepped” their constitutional bounds and “usurped” the authority of the KWA.
They had also “disregarded” cautionary reports filed by the Accountant Generals, VACB, KWA, and Revenue Department not to accord building sanction to the realtor on the ground that public land was in his “illegal possession.’’
An earlier inquiry conducted by VACB Director Jacob Thomas, at the behest of the Kerala Lok Ayukta, had detected manipulation of revenue records to favour the builder. His report strongly hinted that connivance at the “highest level of the executive” had facilitated the unabashed “land grab.”
The delay in registering an FIR in the case despite the Advocate General’s legal opinion to do so had opened the VACB to harsh criticism in court. Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge A. Baharudeen had asked whether the AG’s word carried no weight in the agency.
The VACB submitted the FIR in the case directly to the judge in his chamber. The contents of the FIR largely remained a secret.
