THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) will take a call on whether to go for a fresh probe only after scrutinising the steps taken by its investigators who had conducted the preliminary inquiry against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in connection with the suicide of a Malaysian engineer in 2006.
Sources said the complainant did not include any new facts, evidence or documents to buttress his claim that the enquiry done in 2007 was sabotaged. Since the preliminary enquiry was completed in five years and the move to wrap it up as no offence could be made out was ratified by the state government, the VACB officials are now assessing whether a fresh probe would stand legal scrutiny.
It is in this backdrop that the sleuths have decided to carefully map each step taken by the previous investigators. Only if any glaring omission is noticed in the past action of the sleuths will the vigilance department initiate a fresh inquiry, sources added.
The VACB officers have retrieved the documents connected to the inquiry carried out 20 years ago when Gyanesh was the secretary of the public works department. The file that was generated by the Special Investigation Unit-1 in January, 2007, was retrieved manually. The content of the file was examined by senior VACB officers and legal experts on Monday. The sleuths also went through the complaint filed by a Congress leader, on the basis of which Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala had ordered an enquiry.
Lee See Been, who served as the chief project manager for PATI-BEL, an Indo-Malaysian consortium involved in upgrading the MC Road under the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP), ended his life in 2006. Gyanesh’s name had figured in one of Lee’s suicide notes, which also alleged systemic corruption that plagued the project’s implementation.
Include Muneer in Gyanesh Probe: BJP
T’Puram: The BJP has demanded that IUML leader M K Muneer, who was public works minister when the alleged incidents involving CEC Gyanesh Kumar took place, be made a co-accused in the case. The BJP’s demand came in the wake of the state government ordering a vigilance probe against Gyanesh in the alleged corruption charge levelled by a Malaysian engineer in his suicide note 20 years ago.
BJP MLA B B Gopakumar told reporters on Monday that LDF and UDF, which have alternately governed Keralam over two decades, should explain why no action was taken against Kumar earlier despite him holding key positions under their regimes.
He said the party has written to the government seeking registration of a case against Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan based on the evidence provided by the Enforcement Directorate. “Whether it is Gyanesh Kumar, Pinarayi Vijayan or M K Muneer, anyone who has committed a wrongdoing should face the law. There should be no double standards,” Gopakumar said.
