In a breather to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea by CPM veteran V S Achuthanandan to enlist the Congress leader as accused in a graft case relating to the import of palmolein oil in 1991.
A bench of Justices T S Thakur and Adarsh Kumar Goel, however, said that Achuthanandan, a former Kerala chief minister, could place all materials before the trial court, which would take objective view in the matter.
“We think the allegation that you (Achuthanandan) want to drag the case to get political mileage is not without any basis,” the bench said, after hearing his plea.
Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Achuthanandan, contended that the fresh probe into the matter had given a clean chit to Chandy, who acted as the state finance minister but was not named in the chargesheet.
Published 16 February 2015, 19:03 IST