VACB report on plea against Loknath Behera sought

Thiruvananthapuram: The Vigilance special court here on Friday directed the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to file a report on a petition seeking a probe into the alleged corruption in an order issued by former state police chief Loknath Behera to use a specific brand of paint for police stations.

During the maintainability hearing on the petition, the Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge asked if Mr. Loknath Behera was entitled to issue such an order on April 28 as the Supreme Court on April 24 had scrapped his appointment as police chief and ordered reinstatement of Mr T.P. Senkumar.

The court also asked  how can one say that there was no corruption in prescribing a specific brand paint for police stations, circle inspector offices and DySP offices. It questioned  the need  for a  uniform paint for alpolice stations and remarked that such uniformity should  be ensured at ration shops first. He also asked if decisions to give uniform colour codes were to be taken  at the state police chief level or at the government level.

The petition was filed by  Paichira Navaz who had been filing similar petitions against senior officials and politicians over the last several months. While Mr. Behera, which is now serving as Vigilance director, was arraigned as first accused in the petition, home secretary Bubrata Biswas  is  the second.

VACB legal advisor C.C. Agustine told the court that the decision to give uniform paint combinations to police stations, CI and DySP offices was taken as per a national-level decision. The state police chief only approved a suggestion of the Kerala Police

Housing Construction Corporation in this regard. The brand name was mentioned along with the colour code  to ensure that there was no change in the colour shades. He also informed that though the order was implemented in some of the police stations, the brand mentioned in the order was not used at all and hence there was no ground for the alleged conspiracy with the foreign paint firm or any pecuniary loss caused to government.

The court will conduct further maintainability hearing on May 20 on the basis of a report to be filed by the VACB.