The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed in limine a special leave petition (SLP) filed by Thannickal Gopinathan Nandakumar of Ernakulam challenging a CBI investigation ordered by the Kerala government into the role of Mr. Nandakumar, the then Chief Minister V.S. Achutanandan, and three others in the award of tender for Information Technology services management in the State during 2008 to Reliance Communications.
By an order dated February 23, the High Court had recorded the statement of the Advocate-General on the State government's decision to hand over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The probe pertains to the role of Mr. Achuthanandan, Mr. Nandakumar (who was alleged to have facilitated in the award of tender), and three others in the award of tender for IT services management consisting of operations, maintenance, upgrade, security audit, and certification of the State Data Centre and three Network Operating Centres.
A Bench of Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice Anil R. Dave dismissed the SLP after hearing senior counsel P.S. Narasimha and counsel D.K. Devesh, appearing for Mr. Nandakumar.
The Bench, however, granted liberty to the petitioner to file a review petition in the Kerala High Court and said as an when such a review petition was filed the High Court should examine it in accordance with the law.
George's petition
Mr. Narasimha submitted that the High Court had passed an ex parte order and had merely recorded the statement of the Advocate-General (AG) that a decision had been taken to entrust the case to the CBI. He said the High Court had disposed of the writ petition filed by Government Chief Whip P.C. George stating that nothing remained for consideration. Quoting a Constitution Bench decision, he said that there must be prima facie materials for the court to come to the conclusion to order a CBI probe, but here there was no material before the court.
However, Justice Dattu told the counsel, “If the State government had taken the decision to order a CBI probe before filing of the writ petition, then you have no case. If the decision was taken after the filing of the writ petition you have a case, but you must clearly give us the date when such a decision was taken.”
To this the counsel said “initially when the matter came up for admission, the High Court adjourned it by two weeks. On the next date of hearing, the AG made a statement in the court that a decision had been taken to hand over the probe to the CBI.”
