The Hindu : Kerala News : Supreme Court rejects Karunakaran's plea

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Supreme Court rejects Karunakaran's plea

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, FEB. 22. The Supreme Court today declined to refer to a Constitution Bench the issue relating to the grant of sanction for prosecution of the former Kerala Chief Minister and Member of Parliament, K. Karunakaran, and others.

On January 27, during the course of hearing, a Bench, consisting of Justice K. G. Balakrishnan and Justice B. N. Srikrishna, reserved the verdict on the limited question of whether sanction from the competent authority was necessary for the prosecution of MPs and MLAs involved in corruption cases.

Today, the Bench said there was no need for referring the issue to a larger Bench and that it would hear on April 5 a batch of appeals filed by Mr. Karunakaran, the former Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal, and his son, Sukhbir Singh, and the former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal.

The apex court had already stayed the trial before a special court in Thiruvananthapuram against Mr. Karunakaran in the Rs. 2.80-crore palm oil import scam during 1991-92.

Ex-CM's contention

It was the contention of Mr. Karunakaran that sanction for prosecution from the competent authority was necessary even if a public servant had ceased to hold that office which he was alleged to have misused. Further if on the date of taking cognisance of the offence, he was a public servant holding a different public office, sanction of the competent authority of the present public office was necessary to prosecute him.

He had contended that the High Court had erred in holding that as the offence related to the period when he was the Chief Minister, though he was an MP at the time of taking cognisance, sanction of the Lok Speaker was not necessary.

Initially in 1997, the Vigilance and the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Special Cell, Thiruvananthapuram, registered a case against the 86-year-old Mr. Karunakaran and seven others under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, accusing them of criminal conspiracy causing a loss of Rs. 2.80 crores to the State exchequer on account of import of 15,000 tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia at an enhanced price.

The special court in March 2001 held that it was necessary to obtain sanction for prosecution from the Lok Sabha for taking cognisance of the case.

But on a revision petition filed by the State, the High Court on February 19, 2003 held that no sanction from the Lok Speaker was necessary and accordingly further proceedings were initiated before the special court. The special leave petition by Mr. Karunakaran was directed against this judgment.

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