Court gives 6-week deadline to re-probe palmolein case

KOCHI: The suo moto reinvestigation ordered by a vigilance judge of Thiruvananthapuram into the palmolein import deal should be completed within six weeks, the Kerala High Court ordered on Friday.
Considering a writ petition by IAS officer Jiji Thomson, who is the fifth accused in the palmolein import deal case of 1992, against the reinvestigation ordered by vigilance judge P K Haneefa, Justice K T Sankaran ordered for a speedy investigation as well as removed the observations of the vigilance court.
The court also dismissed the impleading petition filed by opposition leader V S Achuthanandan in the case. The veteran communist leader had sought for impleading in the case stating that there had been several attempts in the past to terminate the entire proceedings even by resorting to withdrawal of prosecution itself.
The vigilance court had suo moto ordered a reinvestigation into the role of present chief minister Oommen Chandy in the deal.
The chief minister is the crime witness no. 23 in the palmolein import case of 1992, which is alleged to have taken place when he was in charge of the finance department in the K Karunakaran government. Even though the investigation team submitted a report that exonerated Chandy, the judge did not admit the report and ordered a reinvestigation on August 8 this year.
During the admission hearing of Jiji Thomson’s petition, the government pleader had not opposed the petition, except for pointing out that there is a difference in ordering a reinvestigation before and after a court has taken cognizance of a crime.
While dismissing another impleading petition by bureaucrat-turned-politician Alphons J Kannanthanam on October 28 this year, the court had ruled that Chandy does not have to be implicated in this case at this stage.
Turning down Kannanthanam’s plea, the division bench of acting Chief Justice C N Ramachandran Nair and Justice P S Gopinathan had observed that Chandy’s statement was recorded by the investigation team thrice in the past and chargesheets were submitted twice in the case. After all these steps, there is no need for dragging Chandy into the case as the investigation team has never named him as an accused, the court had held.