Vigilance ignored bar money trail

Thiruvananthapuram: The preliminary enquiry report by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has confirmed that the Kerala Bar Hotel Owners Association collected over Rs 27 crore from its members in three years from 2011-12 but the agency recommended no further investigation overlooking the disclosure by bar owner Biju Ramesh that Rs 10 crore was paid to Excise Minister K. Babu.

The report, a copy of which is with Deccan Chronicle, instead examined the veracity of the statements  of Mr Ramesh and other witnesses made. Legal circles point out that the VACB action is violative of the Supreme Court verdict in the Lalita Kumari case which mandated the investigating agency to register a case if it gets information regarding commission of a cognizable offence.

Quoting the Supreme Court verdict, a senior lawyer at the High Court said, “the scope of preliminary enquiry is not to verify the veracity or otherwise of the information received but only to ascertain whether the information reveals any cognizable offence.”

Hence it is incumbent on the agency to register a case instead of verifying the nature of evidence, he said, adding, “in the present instance, Mr Ramesh had made a specific disclosure of Mr Babu accepting the bribe, making himself susceptible to criminal prosecution.”

That the VACB registered a case based on a quick verification report against then finance minister K M Mani but chose to ignore the Supreme Court verdict and took no action against the excise minister gives credence to Mr Mani’s charge that the agency dispensed ‘dual justice’ to the two leaders. The VACB, however, says that inconsistency in Mr Ramesh’s statement as the key reason for not registering case against Mr Babu. “Mr Ramesh did not disclose bribing the minister personally in his initial statements to Vigilance as well as the CrPC statement, which clearly reflects his inconsistency,” VACB deputy director of prosecution Mr Vakkom G Saseendran said. “Even court directive says not to register cases based on vague statements.” The VACB explanation, however, does not tally with the Supreme Court directive, the senior High Court lawyer pointed out. “The SC verdict in Lalita Kumari case is clear about scope of the preliminary probe,” he said.

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