Vigilance to probe corruption charges against CPI(M) leaders

Dealing a severe blow to the CPI(M) state leadership...

Dealing a severe blow to the CPI(M) state leadership, Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance) S Jagadeesh on Wednesday asked the state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau to initiate fresh investigations into the scams involving party mouthpiece Deshabhimani.

Jagadeesh asked the vigilance police to re-open the Rs 2-crore bribery case that involved Deshabhimani general manager and CPM central committee member E P Jayarajan and another corruption case against its deputy general manager P Venugopal.

While, Jayarajan allegedly accepted a Rs 2 crore bribe from lottery king Santiago Martin, wanted in Kerala for evading tax worth several crores, Venugopal had taken Rs 1-crore from LiS, a fraudulent money chain in Kerala.

Venugopal had received the money, as the first installment of an alleged Rs 3-crore deal, to influence a probe into the irregularities of LiS. The company was facing charges of cheating the public and flouting RBI regulations.

However, the police failed to collect evidence to substantiate the corruption charges against Jayarajan and Venugopal after the Vigilance court directed the police to probe the issue last year. The court ordered a probe following a petition by Advocate P Rahim, of Indian Lawyers Congress, alleging a corrupt liaison between Martin and the CPM.

Rejecting the earlier report, the court said the investigation report was incomplete. “In the case involving Jayarajan, the police did not record the statements of witnesses produced by the plaintiff. Even Santiago Martin had claimed that he had given money to Deshabhimani as bond,” the court said.

With regard to the LiS bribery case, the court said the police had failed to examine the accounts of the financial institution and should also have taken into consideration that Venugopal was sacked from Deshabhimani for corruption charges.

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The CPM initially claimed the money from Martin was taken as a bond, but contradicted its own statement saying the amount was an advance for advertisement costs. The U-turn came after the party consulted legal experts and realised that Deshabhimani could not have legally floated bonds.