KOCHI: Tenny Joppan, the former personal staff member of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, deposed before the Justice G Sivarajan Judicial Commission that the CM never spoke to solar scam accused Saritha Nair using his mobile phone. He admitted that though he himself had spoken to Saritha on several occasions, they were personal conversations and had nothing to do with the solar business.
According to Joppan, Chandy had spoken to many people, including ministers and MLAs, using his phone, but not to Saritha. The call records of Joppan’s mobile revealed that there were 1,736 calls made between Saritha’s and his mobiles in 2012-2013.
The CM’s former staff member said that he only spoke to Saritha about family matters during those calls.
He testified that he knew about Saritha’s solar business only when the police had arrested her and said he had met her only on three occasions. The first time was at the CM’s office in May 2011 when she came to contribute to the Chief Minister’s disaster relief fund. Later he met Saritha at the Regional Cancer Centre on two occasions.
He said Saritha was present during one of Chandy’s programmes at the Thaikkad Guest House. Later, she sought to meet him several times, but he didn’t oblige, Joppan added. He also said that businessman Sreedharan Nair had visited the CM to raise quarry-related issues in Pathanamthitta.
Joppan denied receiving an email from Saritha containing the advertisement matter to be published in the souvenir brought out by the Kerala Police Association.
Joppan also voiced his fears that his statement recorded by DySP of Chengannur as part of the solar scam had been changed.
Tenny Joppan suspected that this was part of the conspiracy hatched against him and said that ADGP B Hemachandran had never interrogated him in connection with the scam.