The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned the SNC Lavalin corruption case appeals against the discharge of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta postponed the hearing once again after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said its lead counsel, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, was “held up” in another case.
The last time, on July 18, Mr. Raju had similarly been engaged in another case due to which the Lavalin case was adjourned.
In fact, the Bench had adjourned the case to September as Justice Kant was part of the Constitution Bench which was at the time scheduled to begin hearing the challenge against the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
Repeated adjournments
Separate appeals, filed by the CBI and some of the accused who were not discharged in the Lavalin case, had seen repeated adjournments since January 2018.
When the case came up in April, Justice C.T. Ravikumar had recused himself from hearing the case.
In one of the earlier hearings, the top court had cautioned the CBI that it would need to bolster its appeal against Mr. Vijayan with “very strong arguments” as two courts — trial court and the Kerala High Court — had already discharged him of any wrong-doing.
Mr. Vijayan was discharged as an accused by both the Special Court, CBI, in Thiruvananthapuram, and the Kerala High Court.
The CBI had, in its appeal, contended that Mr. Vijayan should face trial in the case.
₹86.25 crore loss
The corruption case concerns the loss of ₹86.25 crore in the Kerala State Electricity Board’s (KSEB) contract with Lavalin for the renovation and modernisation of Pallivasai, Sengulam and Panniar hydroelectric projects in Idukki district of Kerala. Mr. Vijayan was the State’s Power Minister then.
The premier investigation agency said Mr. Vijayan had travelled to Canada as a “guest” of Lavalin in 1997. It was there, in Canada, he had made the “crucial” decision to promote Lavalin, which was a mere consultancy firm retained on fixed-rate basis, from consultants to suppliers.
The CBI had argued that the decision of the Kerala High Court to discharge the Chief Minister was “not correct”.
The High Court had also upheld the discharge of Mr. Vijayan and two former KSEB senior officers K. Mohanachandran and A. Francis.
However, three other accused — M. Kasthuriranga Iyer, G. Rajasekharan Nair and R. Sivadasan — were asked to stand trial. Mr. Nair was then Member (Accounts) of the KSEB and Mr. Iyer was Chief Engineer (Generation) in the Board. They had appealed to the Supreme Court for parity of treatment.
