New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed
a plea for monitoring the probe into a corruption case related to import of palmolein oil by Kerala government in 1991 when
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was state Finance Minister.
While turning down the plea by former IAS officer
Alphonse Kannanthanam for monitoring the probe by Kerala High
Court, a bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam also turned down
his prayer to entrust investigation into the case to a group
of IPS officers, divesting the State`s vigilance department of
it.
Kannanthanam had approached the apex court challenging
last year`s October 28 order of the Kerala High Court turning
down his plea for monitoring the probe into the case.
The high court had also held that the decision to import
palmolein during 1991, when Chandy was the finance minister,
was a collective decision of the state cabinet.
Chandy was the finance minister in the K Karunakaran
cabinet when the state government in November 1991 decided to
import 32,000 tonnes of palmolein from Malaysia. The deal is
alleged to have caused a loss of Rs 2.32 crore to the state
exchequer.
PTI
