Kadakampally case major setback for CBI state unit: V S Achuthanandan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM leader V.S. Achuthanandan has said the CBI special court returning the chargesheet in the Kadakampally land grab case was a major setback for the Kerala unit of the central investigation agency. He  said the  episode was the latest in the series of cases mishandled by the CBI unit. Initially, the CBI had filed a first information report  naming 27 persons as accused in the case.

However, of these,  only five persons from the original list were retained as accused. The prominent omissions  included Salim Raj, the gun man of former chief minister Oommen Chandy,  and Salim Raj’s wife who is an employee of the land revenue commissioner’s office. He  alleged that there was mystery behind their exclusion which was also evident from the court returning the chargesheet for re-investigation.

For quite some time now, the Kerala unit of CBI had been succumbing to money and other pressures and derailing the case, he alleged. He accused the CBI unit of delaying, derailing and sabotaging many important cases and the latest example was Kadakamapally land grab. He  would bring to the notice of the CBI director the Kerala unit’s actions that were bringing a bad name to the premier investigation agency, he added.

Court seeks explanation

The CBI has withdrawn a chargesheet filed in the Kadakampally land grab case last week as the CBI special court here sought clarification for not mentioning the reasons for excluding as many as 22 arraigned in the first information report. While the CBI arraigned 27 persons,  including former chief minister Oommen Chandy's gunman Salim Raj and his wife, in the FIR filed at the CBI court in April 2014, only five persons were arraigned in the chargesheet filed at the CBI court last week.

Hence, the court sought clarification on not mentioning the reason for avoiding the other accused. Meanwhile, sources  said that the CBI investigation team was planning to file separate chargesheets against the accused in corruption charges and hence all those included in the FIR were not mentioned in the chargesheet filed last week. Moreover, six related criminal cases under various sections of Indian Penal Code were already chargesheeted at the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court here and Salim Raj was arraigned in one of the cases.

As the CBI court sought clarifications and said  that the chargesheet was incomplete at this stage, the CBI sought permission to withdrew the chargesheet.
The chargesheet was filed against five persons, including former deputy tahsildar Vidyodayakumar, on the charges of manipulations in ‘tandaper register’ (village records) of 44.5 acres of land at Kadakampally.

The probe found that page number 10,156 of the tandaper register was found torn and  was replaced with a new tandeper register. It was also found that two title deeds were issued on a same piece of land measuring about one and a half acres.