THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Close on the heels of the Vigilance court rejecting a Vigilance report giving clean chit to former finance minister K M Mani in the bar bribery case, hotelier and one of the petitioners in the case Biju Ramesh submitted a petition to Governor and Home Secretary requesting them to invoke Section 156(3) CrPC and to conduct further investigation against Mani.
In his petition, Biju said out only the Governor can order a further investigation as the respondent in the case was a former minister. He pointed out that K M Mani was removed from the office after the Governor’s intervention. Biju said in the petition that Mani had accepted money for renewing the bar license.
He said the enquiry commissioner and special judge had made observations regarding the lapses committed by the investigating officer to close the case and explained the timeline of the case in a nutshell in the petition.
Earlier, the Vigilance court discarded the report that gave the KC (M) supremo a clean chit in the case. The court rebuffed the report filed by Vigilance SP K E Baiju of the Special Investigation Unit-I in March, which was unable to find a concrete evidence to prove that Mani had accepted bribe to reopen around 400 bars that were closed by the UDF government in 2014.