A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court directed the State Government on Friday to file a statement detailing the steps — stage-wise — taken to complete the Vigilance inquiry in the palmolein import case.
The Bench of Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair and Justice Bhabani Prasad Ray asked the government pleader to state whether there was any stay of or prohibition order against the conduct of inquiry causing a delay in completing the probe. The statement should be filed on or before April 11.
The court issued the directives when a writ petition seeking action against the investigation officers for ‘deliberately delaying the probe' came up for hearing.
The petition was filed by P.D. Joseph of Thrissur. According to him, the investigation officers were dragging the probe without any cogent reason. The police had not been conducting a fair and impartial investigation right from the registration of the case. He pointed out that the Vigilance was not able to complete the investigation in the case even 20 years after the registration of the crime.
The government pleader submitted that the investigation got delayed because of court orders. The Supreme Court had stayed the proceedings in the case on three occasions.
When the petition came up for hearing last time, the government pleader had submitted that the Vigilance court had ordered further investigation in the case and directed the police to file a report within three months. He had also informed the court that Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy had not been made an accused so far in the case.
The case relates to a loss of Rs.23.2 crore to the exchequer owing to an import of palmolein during 1991-92 at a higher rate when K. Karunakaran was Chief Minister and P.J. Thomas Food Secretary. Mr. Thomas and the then Food Minister T.H. Musthafa were arraigned as accused in the charge sheet filed by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2003.
According to the charge sheet filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code, the accused had caused the loss to the exchequer by importing palmolein at exorbitant rates through a Singapore-based firm. It alleged that the agreement to import 15,000 tonnes from P&E Ltd. was taken after a meeting Karunakaran had with representatives of the firm and its Indian representative, Mala Trading Corporation, in New Delhi in 1991. The imports, between October 4, 1991 and April 1992, violated rules of the Central and State governments.
