The Left Democratic Front (LDF) on Tuesday weaponised the High Court’s recent observation questioning the public interest nature of Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan’s high-profile plea seeking a CBI inquiry into the execution of the ₹1,500 crore Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) project to portray the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) as pro-corporate and patently anti-State.
LDF convener E.P. Jayarajan said, damningly for the Opposition, the HC Division Bench doubted in open court whether Mr. Satheesan had camouflaged a “publicity interest litigation” as a “public interest litigation”.
He said the court seemed irked that Mr. Satheesan had based his plea on a tender notification promulgated in 2019 instead of furnishing admissible evidence about any actual wrongdoing on the government’s part.
Moreover, Mr. Jayarajan said Mr. Satheesan erroneously relied on the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) preliminary queries to KFON, which were informal, in an embarrassingly unsuccessful attempt to put the government in the dock.
Mr. Jayarajan said the HC, embarrassingly for Mr Satheesan, refused to admit the plea on file. Instead, the Bench ordered the government to articulate its position in a sworn statement.
“The HC observation is a slap on Mr. Satheesan’s face. The Leader of the Opposition has stooped to the level of a vexatious litigant. He has filed the PIL to protect the interests of corporate monopolies that control internet service delivery in the country,” he said.
The government had initiated KFON to provide free Internet service to 20 lakh low-income households and broadband connectivity at affordable rates to homes, businesses and government offices.
Mr. Satheesan’s plea for a CBI inquiry into KFON primarily served the purpose of corporate Internet service providers hell-bent on scuttling or stalling the flagship scheme.
Mr. Jayarajan said Mr. Satheesan had worked overtime to sabotage and cast aspersions on Kerala’s much-needed mega infrastructure projects in the public sector by airing false accusations of corruption.
Mr. Satheesan told reporters in Kannur that the High Court’s mockery of his plea had grieved him deeply. “I had approached the HC for justice and not for publicity,” he said.
Mr. Satheesan said KFON has corruption and nepotism written all over it. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former Principal Secretary, M. Sivasankar, had arbitrarily hiked the tender amount from ₹1,000 crore to ₹1,500 crore.
He said the project’s executors subcontracted much of the work to private firms where the CM’s family members had stakes. Moreover, the CAG had questioned the government about various wrongdoings connected to KFON.
So far, KFON has not benefitted anybody and turned out to be a white elephant. He said the few government offices linked to KFON found the connections patchy and snag-ridden, he said.
“Like Keltron’s AI cameras, the government has used KFON as an avenue for big-ticket corruption at public expense,” Mr Satheesan said.
