THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The two- decades-old palmolein case returned to haunt Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday when a Vigilance Court here ordered investigation into his role in the oil import deal when he was Finance Minister in the K Karunakaran government in 1992. Chandy is learnt to have consulted A-G K P Dandapani, who rushed to the capital from Kochi, on the issue. The Vigilance Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge rejected a probe report tendered by the vigilance department exonerating him. It ordered to file a fresh report within three months, including the role of Chandy in the palmolein import deal evading the tender process.However, after holding talks with his Cabinet colleagues and the Congress high command Chandy is learnt to have taken a moral high ground and sought to relinquish the Vigilance portfolio. In the meeting with senior party colleagues and senior ministers in the cabinet, he had reportedly offered to quit on moral grounds till a final verdict is delivered in the case. But Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty, Finance Minister K M Mani and Ramesh Chennithala vehemently opposed this proposal and told Chandy that there was no situation warranting his resignation.The party high command is also reported to have prevailed upon Chandy and asked him to face the case legally and politically.The court considered a second report of the vigilance department on the basis of a plea of Congress leader and former Civil Supplies Minister T H Mustafa, the second accused in the palmolein case, to exclude him from the list of accused, citing that the then Finance Minister Chandy has not been made an accused. While dismissing the report, Special Judge P K Haneefa remarked that the argument in the report that there is no prima facie evidence to include Oommen Chandy, though he was Finance Minister at the time of palmolein imports, could not be approved. The court noted that on the basis of a request from the Civil Supplies Department, the proposal for palmolein imports was included as an item extraordinary for the consideration of the Cabinet headed by then CM K Karunakaran, which met on November 27,1991.The point that the file was lying in the Finance Ministry for one-and-a-half months and that Chandy was also aware of slapping a 15 pc service tax for palmolein imports was also taken note of by the Vigilance Court.
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