The Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed the appeals in the SNC Lavalin corruption case against the discharge of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan from May 1.
Appearing before a Bench of Justices Surya Kant and K.V. Viswanathan, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, appearing for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), sought an early date, possibly in March or April.
When the Bench said its calendar was chock-a-block for both the months, Mr. Raju even said the Central agency could take a chance for a hearing or even file written submissions of its arguments to save time for the court.
The court initially fixed the dates from May 8, but later changed it to May 1 and May 2 so that it could have two days, back-to-back, for hearing the case.
One of the appellants said the case had been listed 30 times since 2017, and adjourned every time.
The CBI counsel said the agency was not to blame for the adjournments.
“It is not that the CBI is disinclined to take up the case… The case can be fixed for any date,” the counsel submitted.
Mr. Vijayan was discharged as an accused by both the Special Court, CBI, in Thiruvananthapuram, and the Kerala High Court.
The CBI had, in its appeal, contended that Mr. Vijayan should face trial in the case. In one of the earlier hearings, the Supreme Court had itself cautioned the CBI that it would need to bolster its appeal against Mr. Vijayan with “very strong arguments” as two courts — trial court and the Kerala High Court — had already discharged him of any wrong-doing.
The corruption case concerns the loss of ₹86.25 crore in the Kerala State Electricity Board’s (KSEB) contract with Lavalin for the renovation and modernisation of Pallivasai, Sengulam and Panniar hydroelectric projects in Idukki district of Kerala. Mr. Vijayan was the State’s Power Minister then.
The premier investigation agency said Mr. Vijayan had travelled to Canada as a “guest” of Lavalin in 1997. It was there, in Canada, he had made the “crucial” decision to promote Lavalin, which was a mere consultancy firm retained on fixed-rate basis, from consultants to suppliers.
The CBI had argued that the decision of the Kerala High Court to discharge the Chief Minister was “not correct”.
The High Court had also upheld the discharge of Mr. Vijayan and two former KSEB senior officers — K. Mohanachandran and A. Francis.
However, three other accused — M. Kasthuriranga Iyer, G. Rajasekharan Nair and R. Sivadasan — were asked to stand trial. Mr. Nair was then Member (Accounts) of the KSEB and Mr. Iyer was Chief Engineer (Generation) in the Board. They had appealed to the Supreme Court for parity of treatment.
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