Kochi: The Kerala High Court Tuesday declined to grant an interim stay of its single-judge direction to the VACB to lodge an FIR against former Keralam Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and others in the alleged CMRL bribery case.
A bench of Justices K Natarajan and Johnson John said that the court must first allow the applications seeking permission to appeal against the single judge’s order before considering their request for a stay.
The court was hearing applications by Vijayan, his daughter Veena T and her husband P A Mohamed Riyas seeking permission to file an appeal against the single judge’s October 9 order.
“Then the petitions have to be numbered, admitted and then only stay can be considered. That is the procedure,” the bench said.
It also reserved its order on their applications.
Earlier, during the pre-lunch hearing, the bench asked the state government why it ordered a preliminary enquiry when information was given by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in connection with the alleged CMRL bribery case, regarding offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Vijayan, Veena and Riyas.
Advocate General Jaju Babu told the bench that the government decided to order a preliminary enquiry as it wanted to confirm the allegations in the information given by the ED, as a lot of other materials connected with the matter had not been furnished by the agency to the state police.
Vijayan, Veena and Riyas, in their appeals, have claimed that they were not heard by the single judge before issuing the October 9 direction to lodge the FIR.
The bench also asked the appellants why they had not challenged the FIR since it had already been registered.
It also asked whether an accused or proposed accused should always be heard before registering an FIR against them in a criminal matter.
The lawyers for the appellants contended that they ought to have been heard as the court was hearing a writ petition and its orders would affect them.
“It was not a case of a police officer registering an FIR in the routine course,” the lawyers for the appellants said.
They also said that once the High Court has ordered lodging of an FIR, the appellants cannot challenge it in the court.
They also claimed that the petition, in which the single judge passed the order, was in the form of a public interest litigation and therefore, it should have been heard by a division bench which deals with PILs.
The appeals were moved in the wake of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (VACB) Special Investigation Unit-1 registering, on Monday, two FIRs against Vijayan and his family members in connection with the alleged CMRL bribery case.
The Kerala High Court October 9 directed registration of a case based on a report submitted by the ED to the state police.
The ED had sought registration of a case based on evidence gathered during its investigation and searches conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The agency has alleged that CMRL made fraudulent payments of Rs 2.78 crore to Veena’s now-defunct company, Exalogic Solutions, under the guise of IT consultancy services.
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