Court rejects petition against acquital of Pinarayi in SNC-Lavalin case

In a major relief to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday upheld a CBI special court judgment which discharged him from the SNC-Lavalin corruption case. The court also upheld the discharge of two former government officials but set aside the discharge of three former Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) officials, leaving them to face trial.

Justice P Ubaid delivered a 102-page judgment on the CBI’s revision petition against the Thiruvananthapuram CBI special court’s November 2013 judgment which discharged Vijayan and six others from the case. Vijayan was arraigned as seventh accused.

According to the CBI charge-sheet, the state suffered a loss of Rs 86.25 crore in awarding a Rs-374.5 crore supply contract to Canada-headquartered firm SNC-Lavalin, to revive three hydroelectricity projects, in Senkulam, Panniyar and Pallivasal. The contract was awarded after alleged procedural violations, in 1997, when Vijayan was minister for power.

According to the contract, SNC-Lavalin was to provide a grant of Rs 98.3 crore to the Malabar Cancer Centre (MCC) in Thalassery, in Kannur. The centre, however, received only about Rs 12 crore and the company backed out of the non-binding agreement.

The major charge against Vijayan was that he failed to obtain an enforceable contract from SNC-Lavalin regarding the grant and showed undue haste in executing the contract when the grant was offered. The HC observed that Vijayan had no sufficient tenure to execute an enforceable contract and that the CBI failed to explain why charges were not pressed against ministers who succeeded him. “I find that the CBI picked and chose one Minister alone for prosecution, on an allegation of conspiracy,” the judge said.

The HC upheld the discharge of former power secretary K Mohanachandran and former joint secretary (power) A Francis – first and eighth accused – from the case. KSEB former chief accounts officer K G Rajasekharan Nair, former chairman R Sivadasan and former chief engineer Kasturiranga Iyer will face trial. The court said their role in designing the contract, allegedly favourable to SNC-Lavalin, had to be “thoroughly examined” during the trial.