New Delhi, July 11: The Supreme Court today admitted a petition filed by former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader K Karunakaran and made absolute the stay on his prosecution in a corruption case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the palmolein oil imports. A bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare and Justice S B Sinha admitted the appeal challenging the filing of chargesheet against him without obtaining sanction from the authorities to prosecute him. Appearing for the former chief minister, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said the trial court had rightly returned the chargesheet to the police as despite grant of sufficient time the investigating agency had not been able to secure sanction for prosecution from the Lok Sabha speaker as his client was an MP when the chargesheet was filed. The Kerala High Court had ruled that no permission of the speaker of Lok Sabha would be necessary to prosecute Karunakaran despite the fact that he was an MP when he was chargesheeted. The former chief minister has challenged this order before the Supreme Court.
The case against Karunakaran was registered in 1997, two years after he ceased to be the chief minister, after the opposition raised hue and cry over the alleged irregularity in the import of palmolein oil and CPI leader V S Achutanandan had filed a complaint against the former chief minister.
The court today repeatedly questioned the locus standi of the CPI leader and passed no order on his petition seeking to be a party in the hearing of the petition filed by Karunakaran. Bureau Report