Giving a clean chit to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the Kerala High Court on Friday ruled that the actions by the Chief Minister in the Solar case “would not amount to any criminal act” attracting the offence of cheating. However, the court made it clear that the investigating team is free to probe the case in accordance with law.
“There are no materials before the court to find that there is an assurance on the part of the Chief Minister about the credentials of ‘Team Solar’ and that he encouraged Sreedharan Nair to do business with Saritha Nair. Even assuming for a moment that he made assurance and encouraged Nair to invest in the project, it would not amount to any criminal act attracting Section 420 r/w 34 IPC,” the court observed.
Justice Harun Ul Rashid passed the order while dismissing a petition by Joy Kaitharath of Thrissur seeking a directive to the Special Investigation Team to retrieve the data in the computer hard discs, servers supporting the CCTV cameras and web cameras in the Secretariat and the office of the Chief Minister. The petitioner submitted that if Saritha accompanied Sreedharan Nair and met the CM as stated by Nair in his 164 statement, it would have been recorded in the web camera and 24 CCTVs. Hence it should be essential to seize the hard disc to prove the allegations of Nair.
The court observed that “neither in the statement nor in the affidavit, Nair has a case that the CM is also involved in the conspiracy or he has any role to play in the matter of execution of agreement arrived at between the accused and Nair.”