The CBI court here on Wednesday ruled out further investigation into the role of former ministers, including Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and Speaker G Karthikeyan in the SNC-Lavalin case.
Dismissing the petitions, Judge T S P Moosath said that there was nothing to prove that the investigation conducted by the CBI was tainted and biased. He said that there was no necessity for further investigation and there were no circumstances which warranted further investigation.
The court also observed that the CBI had conducted investigation regarding all aspects mentioned in the petitions and objections. Further, the court said that the petitioners had not submitted any circumstantial evidence against the alleged persons.
On the allegations raised against Pinarayi and Karthikeyan, that they got monetary benefits from the deal, the court said that there was no corroborative evidence to substantiate that mediator Dileep paid bribe to these persons.
Deepak Kumar, one of the key witnesses, had submitted that he was witness to several financial transactions between middlemen of the company, Pinarayi and Karthikeyan. However, the court said that the petitioners could not furnish any information to support the allegations.It said that all the allegations of Deepak Kumar were looked into during the
investigation and the allegations could not be substantiated. The CBI had told the court that Deepak was examined in detail on a number of occasions and the allegations were verified. There was no evidence to support Deepak’s version.
The court observed that the CBI had conducted proper investigation regarding the involvement of Sivadasa Menon, who was the then Finance Minister. “Considering the documents produced by the petitioners, it can be seen that the allegations were not correct,” the court said.
However, the judge said that during the course of the trial, if it appears from any evidence that any person, not among the accused, had committed the offence, the court can proceed against them.
EMS Samskarika Vedi, Crime Magazine editor T P Nandakumar and advocate P Nagaraj, in their petitions, had demanded further investigation into the role of Pinarayi Vijayan and Karthikeyan, who were stated to have made monetary benefits from the deal with the SNC-Lavalin. They also sought to probe the role of Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who was then a board member. The petitioners also argued that investigation has to be conducted against Sivadasa Menon as he was the Finance Minister at that time.