Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 16 – Former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said today that he was still in the dark about the findings of the judicial commission that investigated the multi-crore solar scam, days after the state government ordered a vigilance probe against him.
“The actual facts and findings on which the commission arrived at its conclusion can be known only if the we get a copy of the report,” Chandy told PTI here.
The senior Congress leader said, “If we want to challenge the facts and findings of the commission in court, we should know the contents of the report.”
The government has come out with accusations, but nobody has seen the report of the commission, he said.
Chandy said he would submit a letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, seeking a copy of the report of the Justice G Sivarajan headed commission that probed the scandal, which rocked the previous Congress-led UDF government headed by Chandy.
Asked whether he planned to file a defamation case against the accused Saritha S Nair, who levelled the charges, Chandy quipped that “only after knowing the facts and findings can further steps be taken in this regard.”
Chandy said that though he had given an application seeking a copy of the report under the Right to Information Act, he was approaching the chief minister as the government had made it clear that the report could be made public only after it was tabled in the state Assembly.
“We are confident. The Commission’s sittings were held in a very transparent manner and only interested parties had made statements before the commission,” the former chief minister said.
However, it was not known whether the commission had overstepped its mandate, Chandy said.
Asked whether the CPI(M)-led LDF government’s move was political, Chandy said that all the present accusations were levelled by the government.
Besides Chandy, the government had also decided to order a probe on October 11 against former ministers Aryadan Mohamed and Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan after registering a case against them.
Two former Congress MLAs — Thampanoor Ravi and Benny Benhanan — have also been brought under the ambit of the probe.
The commission was appointed by the previous Chandy government after allegations surfaced about duping of several people of crores of rupees by prime accused Saritha Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan, who offered them solar panel solutions.
Announcing the probe, Chief Minister Vijayan had said a criminal case would be registered and an Special Investigation Team would probe allegations of rape levelled by Saritha against some politicians in her July 17, 2013 letter.
The charge against Radhakrishnan, who was home and vigilance minister in the Chandy cabinet, was that he had tried to protect the former chief minister and “illegally” used police officers under him to “influence” the case.
According to the commission, a vigilance case should be registered against former power minister Aryadan Mohammed, as he had helped Saritha’s Team Solar illegally.
Some Congress state ministers, MPs and MLAs were named by Saritha in the letter written by her when she was behind bars in connection with the solar scam.
Source: PTI
