Sex scam: Kerala government backs ex-minister VS Achuthanandan

Kochi: The state government has opposed the petition filed by veteran CPM leader V.S. Achuthanandan in the High Court seeking a review of a local court decision rejecting his petition for a reinvestigation into the ice cream parlour sex scandal case.

The affidavit submitted by the state government on Tuesday said the petition by VS, who is also chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission, should be rejected on the grounds that the investigation into the case had ended many years ago and that there was no need for any fresh probe into it.

The Kozhikode judicial magistrate court had ordered the closure of the case on July 23, 2017 by rejecting a petition filed by Mr Achuthanandan seeking a CBI probe into the case in the wake of the revelations made by Mr K.A. Rauf, a relative of Mr P.K. Kunhalikutty, former minister, alleging that the witnesses in the case changed their statements after receiving huge payments from Mr Kunhalikutty.

The incidents connected with the ice cream parlour sex scandal took place in 1995-96 when Mr Kunhalikutty was industries minister in the A.K. Antony government.

It snowballed into a major scandal with Ms K. Ajitha, feminist activist, filing a case in Kozhikode about a sex racket operating using an ice cream parlour in the city as a cover when the LDF government headed by E.K. Nayanar came to power.  According to the reports, five of the girls allegedly gave statements that Mr Kunhalikutty had sexually abused them. The five, however, retracted their statements and cleared him from the charges by giving fresh statements. As the case was meandering in various courts, the UDF returned to power in 2001 and Mr Kunhalikutty again became a minister.    

A few years later, one of the girls involved in the incident stated on a television channel that she had changed the statement after taking money from the agents of Mr Kunhalikutty. The issue rocked the state and Mr Kunhalikutty was forced to resign from the state cabinet. He also lost the election from Kuttipuram in the Assembly polls held in 2006. Mr Rauf later corroborated the statements made by the girl. The state government then constituted a special investigation team to probe the charges made by Mr Rauf and the team submitted a report stating that there was no evidence to substantiate the charges. VS then approached the court for rejecting the probe report and seeking a CBI investigation into the matter.