THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The power situation in Kerala was so critical in 1996 that Electricity Minister Pinarayi Vijayan could not even think of inviting competitive tenders from Canadian firms to supply equipment for the renovation and modernisation of Panniyar, Chengulam and Pallivasal hydro-electric projects.
Thus observed Advocate-General C P Sudhakara Prasad in his legal opinion on SNC-Lavalin case submitted to the State Cabinet.
“If open tender within Canada had been resorted to, naturally much time would have been taken,’’ the AG said in the 33rd paragraph of the advice.
He was putting up a very weak defence against the CBI finding that the cost of equipment supplied by SNC-Lavalin was very high and there was a provision for inviting competitive tenders within Canada. The reason for not doing so, according to the AG, is the probable delay of a few more weeks in the multi-crore project.
At several points in the report, the AG takes up the role of the advocate of Accused-9 (Pinarayi) and fiercely argues in his defence. Though the AG admits that KSEB former Chief Engineer Radhakrishna Pillai, who had been the consultant for conducting the feasibility study of the renovation work, was given payment by the SN CLavalin, he bluntly states that criticism levelled against Pillai’s report by the CBI `cannot be countenanced.’ While discussing the intention of A-9 for allotting the Malabar Cancer Centre (MCC) at Thalassery, the AG quotes a Supreme Court order that upheld the relocation of Southern Railway office to Hubli from Bangalore.
“The administrator is competent to take such policy decisions. Hence where to locate the Cancer Centre is for A-9 to decide and for that no bad motive could be attributed,’’ says Sudhakara Prasad.
The CBI had alleged that by choosing Thalassery as the location of MCC, Pinarayi aimed to take political mileage out of it.
In paragraph 43, the AG questions the integrity of former Finance Principal Secretary Varadachari who dared to give a statement to the CBI against Pinarayi Vijayan.
The AG concludes that the CBI reached a conclusion about Varadachari’s statement without understanding the factual situation. It might be noted that neither the AG nor the CBI had seen the original file in which Pinarayi noted ‘to examine Varadachari’s brain’ as it had conspicuously gone missing from the Secretariat. Two other colleagues of Varadachari also confirmed during interrogation that there was such a statement in the file. But, for the AG, what is more important is the slight contradictions in their statement like the time of Varadachari writing his rejoinder.
“Varadachari said the note was prepared two days after the Board meeting while Krishnan Nair (his colleague) said the DO letter was drafted immediately after the return of Varadachari from the Board meeting,’’ observes the AG.
In his frantic effort to save his political boss CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan from prosecution, the AG finds fault with the CBI for believing the statement of a retired senior civil servant and advises it to rather probe the technical elements like when exactly the drafting of a file took place 13 years ago!