Kerala - Kochi   

Court dismisses plea for probe against Ministers

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed a criminal revision petition against the order of Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge, Thiruvananthapuram, rejecting a plea for a vigilance inquiry against Forest Minister Benoy Viswom, Labour and Excise Minister P.K. Gurudasan and others in the Merchiston estate case.

The petition was dismissed by Justice V. Ramkumar. It was filed by P. Rehim, State secretary, Indian Lawyers Congress. The complaint of Mr. Rahim was that the Ministers and Xavi Mano Mathew, who owned the estate, hatched a conspiracy and convened a meeting of the officers of the Forest Department on May 16, 2007, on the pretext of settling a labour dispute and took a decision that enabled Mr. Mathew to file an application before the custodian of ecologically fragile land seeking to de-notifying the land as not being an ecologically fragile land. The custodian, later, passed an order de-notifying the land.

The vigilance Special Judge had observed that it was not a fit case to order a preliminary inquiry or investigation into these allegations. Dismissing the petition, the Judge said that it could not be inferred even remotely that the two Ministers had any ulterior motive or extraneous consideration behind the holding of a meeting or in taking those decisions.

The court termed as misconceived the contention of the petitioner that the application submitted by Mr. Mathew seeking de-notification was “ante-dated.”

Even though one of the decisions in the meeting was that Mr. Mathew may apply to the custodian to de-notifying the land, the very same minutes had recorded that the Conservator of Forest had mentioned that the estate owner had submitted a complaint to the custodian against the inclusion of his land as ecologically fragile land category. The court observed that since the respondents were Ministers, no court could take cognizance of the offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act without a prosecution sanction. The petitioner had not obtained any sanction from the government to prosecute the Ministers.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Book on human rights
Award for reporter
Seminar for media
Court dismisses plea for probe against Ministers
Call for investigation wing under Ombudsman
Environment panel to hold sittings
Yuva Morcha blocks highway
Manorama casts a magical spell
M.N. Vijayan’s works released
Helen Keller remembered
Boat sinks off coast; fishermen rescued
Bus staff fight on road, disrupt traffic
Charges filed against Santhosh Madhavan
Takes charge
Do not withdraw textbook, says Red Flag
Kochi Today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu