Vigilance officials rebut Jiji Thomson’s claim

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) officials are surprised at chief secretary Jiji Thomson’s fresh 'revelations' over the decades-old palmolein import deal as they had not come across with any such disagreement as he claimed.

“We have perused almost every related files. He did not mention about such a note of dissent when we took his statements or in his discharge petitions in the court,” a Vigilance official who played a key role in the probe told DC.

Vigilance sources also said there was a strong case against Mr Thomson who was the managing director of Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation then.

He signed the deal with the Malaysian firm, that too even a couple of days before the government issued its formal orders on the basis of the Cabinet decision to import palmolein from Malaysia.

This too was in violation of the government’s rules of business. Also the agreement with the Malaysian firm violated the Centre’s norms, sources said.

A team led by the then Vigilance special cell SP A Surendran had investigated the case and filed the charge-sheet against former chief minister K Karunakaran and seven others including Mr Thomson on Nov 23, 1999.

His statement on Tuesday that he had written a dissent note in the file for importing palmolein had kicked up a controversy.

He said his stand was that selecting a company without floating global tenders was wrong.