An early closure to the bar bribery case appeared to have eluded litigants again on Monday with an anti-corruption court here raising the question whether a recent amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act had any bearing on the ongoing legal dispute involving former Finance Minister K.M. Mani.
Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge D. Ajith Kumar aired the question whether Section 17 (a), which stated that prior government sanction was mandatory to conduct any further inquiry in a particular category of corruption cases, had any pertinence to the bar case.
Gopalakrishna Kurup, counsel for Administrative Reforms Commission chairperson V.S. Achuthanandan, who is the de facto complainant in the case, argued that the amendment had no bearing on the case against Mr. Mani.
Complaint of VS
The VACB had registered a case on its own against Mr. Mani on the merit of Mr. Achuthanandan’s complaint. It had found value in Mr. Achuthanandan’s accusation that Mr. Mani had sought and received illegal gratification from the Kerala Bar Hotel Association in 2014-15 to expedite the relicensing of more than 300 bars that were closed on the premise that they were unhygienic.
However, the agency later did a flip-flop on its findings. The court threw out two back-to-back Vigilance reports exonerating Mr. Mani and ordered further probe in both the instances. Now it was considering a third report. Mr. Achuthanandan had again objected to any reprieve to Mr. Mani without due trial. The amendment had no significance in the matter under consideration. The VACB had registered the case on its own. The court had ordered the further inquiry before the change was incorporated. Moreover, the alleged offence against Mr. Mani did not fall in the category of cases that required government sanction for further investigation.
The judge said he would consider the question again on September 18.
