C N Balakrishnan comes under vigilance lens

Thrissur: Acting on a complaint filed by a Thrissur-based activist on the alleged corruption in Consumerfed, the vigilance special court here on Thursday ordered the state vigilance director to conduct a quick verification (QV) against co-operation minister C. N. Balakrishnan and other officials.

Petitioner George Vattukulam mentioned several allegations of corruption while the additional legal advisor to vigilance informed the court that quick verifications were going on in most of them, except three.

So, judge SS Vassan ordered QV on three specific allegations including swindling of money which the Consumerfed gets as commission/ incentive from more than 125 suppliers of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL).

The petitioner alleged that Consumerfed lost Rs 28.81 crore between 2010-15 on this account. Mr Vattukulam also argued that for repairing works of 141 vans of ‘Mobile Triveni’, an additional bill of Rs 3 lakh was raised for each vehicle as directed by the minister. The third allegation related to Poojapura Neethi Vitharana Kendram in Thiruvananthapuram.

Besides the minister, former chairman Joy Thomas, MD Riji G. Nair, additional registrar V. Sanil Kumar and five other former officials were respondents in the petition.

The petitioner claimed that he had submitted nearly 800 pages of supporting documents about the departmental inquiry into the allegations of corruption and a letter from the minister's former aide, P. A. Shekaran, linking him to the corrupt deals.