The Hindu : Kerala News : Court absolves Kunhalikutty of corruption charges

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Court absolves Kunhalikutty of corruption charges

By Our Staff Reporter

KOZHIKODE, NOV. 23. The Kozhikode Vigilance Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge today absolved the Industries Minister, P.K. Kunhalikutty, in the corruption case associated with the infamous Kozhikode ice-cream parlour sex scandal.

Delivering the judgement based on a petition filed by the police to close the case relating to the exemption of building rules and acquisition of land in Kozhikode, the Special Judge M.R. Gopalakrishnan Nair, said that the offence of forgery "as defined in Section 463 of Indian Penal Code (IPC)'' could not be taken up against Mr. Kunhalikutty.

Effecting corrections, scoring of certain provisions in the typed matter or adding certain provisions before signing the final Government Order will not attract either Section 465 (punishment for forgery) or Section 477 A (falsification of accounts) of IPC, the court observed.

Abuse of power

Regarding the abuse of power by Mr. Kunhalikutty in granting exemption to construct the proposed multi-storied building, the court said that the question as to whether the Minister's order was tainted with malafides, arbitrariness or illegality was considered by the Kerala High Court in writ appeal in 2001.

He said that there was a legal bar in reopening the issue since the High Court had already given its verdict that the exemption order in the case could not be quashed. The judgement had been delivered by Justice Abdul Gafoor in concurrence with Justice Muhammed Shafi. Besides, the case against Mr. Kunhalikutty was a totally different matter, unconnected with the acquisition proceedings, the court said.

Charges

The allegation against Mr. Kunhalikutty was that he gave exemptions violating the provisions of the Municipal Act for constructing an 18-storied building to N.K. Ibrahim and others on a property in Kozhikode. The investigating officer had also reported that Mr. Kunhalikutty made alterations in ink in the fair copy of the Government Order. The Minister while granting exemption overstepped his powers and passed orders to see somehow or the other that the restrictions contained in Municipalities Act were superceded.

The court said that the final report of the police in the land acquisition case could not be accepted as such but there were ample materials in the case to proceed against other four accused - P.P. Abdul Rahiman, an NRI businessman, O. Rajagopal, former Mayor of Kozhikode, T.K. Ravindran, former secretary of Kozhikode Corporation, and Amitabh Kant, former Kozhikode Collector.

Mr. Kunhalikutty had been arrayed as the fifth accused by the police. Two of the accused in the case had also been arrayed as accused in the Kozhikode ice-cream parlour case.

Directive to police

The court also directed the police to complete the investigation and file a final report within three months. "The investigating agency shall conduct a further investigation as to whether the Revenue Board had any role in closing the acquisition proceedings in order to help Abdul Rahiman, without any public interest,'' it said.

The roles of Mr. Amitabh Kant and Mr. Raveendran in closing the acquisition proceedings abruptly and forestalling the expansion of the Palayam bus stand have to be investigated. It appears prima facie that they were abusing their official position to give pecuniary advantage to Abdul Rahiman. Further, the roles played by Mr. Rajagopal as an abetter and the involvement of Abdul Rahiman needed to be investigated in detail, the court said. It was on October 27, 2004 that the police submitted a final report in the graft case to the court requesting to close it as "mistake of facts''.

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