Retiring Jiji Thomson will get only half pension

Thiruvananthapuram: For a quarter century, the palmolein case had stalked his official life. Now, it looks as if the case will haunt chief secretary Jiji Thomson’s retired life as well. Thanks to a vigilance chargesheet in the case, Mr Thomson who will retire on February 29, will be denied 50 per cent of his pension. Half of Mr Thomson’s pension will be withheld from him until the final judgement in the case, which had already been dragging for decades.

Mr Thomson will continue as KSIDC chairman, and therefore will draw salary in that capacity. His appointment as the Chief Minister’s advisor is only a honorary post, for which he will not be accepting any pay. From March onwards, his pay will be salary minus pension, as he cannot avail of double income. As long as he remains KSIDC chairman, the shortage in pension will be compensated by his KSIDC salary.

Mr Thomson continues to assert that he had not done anything wrong in the case. “They are speaking about a hypothetical loss,” he said. “Such a charge cropped up as a result of a poor understanding of international trade. One cannot fix the price of a highly volatile commodity like palmolein, whose price changes two times a day, on the day of signing the MoU,” Mr Thomson said. In fact, the MoU itself had stated that a price will be fixed only after a slew of procedures are completed.

The case related to alleged irregularities in the import of 15,000 tonnes of palmolein from Malaysia, allegedly causing a loss of '2.32 crore during 1991-92.

Former Chief Minister, the late K. Karunakaran, was the first accused in the case. Along with Mr Thomson, who was then the MD of Civil Supplies Corporation, former Chief Secretary S. Padmakumar, and former Additional Chief Secretary Zachariah Mathew were also arraigned as accused.

A Vigilance court had recently observed that Padmakumar and Zachariah Mathew were only obeying orders. “That clearly applies to me, too, as I was the one implementing the order,” Mr Thomson said.