Thiruvananthapuram: The vigilance special court has ordered further investigation into the bar bribe scam case involving state Finance Minister K Mani. This comes as a major setback to the state government and finance minister as the vigilance who enquired into the bribe allegation had asked for a closure, for want of enough evidence.
Mani was accused of taking a bribe of Rs 1 crore from bar owners to help in renewing their licenses. The judge said, "Final report is not accepted and the matter is remitted back to the Investigating Officer (IO) for further investigation."
The final report by the vigilance was a clean chit to the finance minister stating that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation and hence further action should be dropped.
This move had come under lot of criticism and political controversy. The report submitted by the Investigating Officer earlier had said that the evidence collected could attract penalty under section 7 and 13 of the prevention of Corruption act. Vigilance director Vinson M Paul also came under criticism for his move of seeking legal advice from a private lawyer and for also giving a direction to the investigating officer.
Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, who had filed the complaint, had demanded the resignation of the finance minister.
This will be a major topic of discussion during the upcoming local body elections in less than a week and the coming assembly elections.
It has to be recalled that the opposition had held widespread protests against the Finance minister demanding his resignation in this case. Even inside the Kerala assembly a ruckus was created on the day of the budget presentation, as the opposition held that they would not let Mani present the budget.
Reacting to the court order, Mani said that he welcomed the court order.
Comments
0 comment