JOIN USIn a major relief to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday upheld a CBI special court judgement which discharged him from the SNC-Lavalin corruption case.
The court also upheld the discharge of two former government officials.
It, however, 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 judgement on the CBI’s revision petition against the Thiruvananthapuram CBI special court’s November, 2013 judgement, 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 the Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin, to revive three hydro-electricity projects — in Senkulam, Panniyar and Pallivasal.
The contract was awarded in 1997, allegedly after procedural violations, when Vijayan was state 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, 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.