The government had initially constituted an SIT to probe the findings of the report prepared by the commission led by justice Sivarajan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over the cases filed by the key accused in solar scam against five Congress leaders and BJP national vice-president AP Abdullakutty. CBI’s Thiruvananthapuram unit registered FIRs against Oommen Chandy, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, Congress MPs Hibi Eden and Adoor Prakash, MLA AP Anilkumar and Abdullakutty.
Earlier, the woman, who was accused in a series of financial frauds, had petitioned the police about sexual abuse by these leaders. While the FIR against five of them was submitted at the CJM court here, the one against Anilkumar is learnt to have been filed at Ernakulam CJM court.
The FIRs were registered on the basis of places of occurrence of crime as claimed in the petition by the woman. The gist of the complaint is that in 2012, when the UDF government led by Chandy was in power, the accused molested the complainant at various locations, including ministerial bungalows.
While Venugopal was an MP representing Alappuzha then, Anilkumar and Prakash were ministers. Abdullakutty, who was in Congress then, was an MLA representing Kannur constituency, while Hibi Eden was the MLA representing Ernakulam.
The government had initially constituted an SIT to probe the findings of the report prepared by the commission led by justice Sivarajan. Following this, the woman had given a complaint before the special team under the then DGP (north zone) Rajesh Dewan. However, the team did not register an FIR or go for a formal probe in the matter.
After Dewan retired, the charge of SIT was handed over to the then ADGP (south zone) Anil Kant. The complaint was referred to the crime branch. The SIT from crime branch had registered FIRs on the basis of the complaint by invoking rape charges, but had not proceeded further citing lack of scientific evidence.
But, in January this year ahead of assembly elections, the government decided to hand over the case to CBI, but even in the report that was handed over to the agency, additional chief secretary (home and vigilance) TK Jose had said that there is no evidence against Chandy, while it was said that evidence was being collected against other accused. CBI finally decided to take over the case after deliberating on the matter for over six months.
Source: TNN
