“My life is an open book and my position is transparent. I would never do anything that weakens the judiciary”
By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
Congress party leader and Kerala chief minister, Oommen Chandy, suffered a big blow yesterday, less than a fortnight to the general elections, when a court virtually put him in the dock over the deeds of his sacked bodyguard and personal staff.
Coming down heavily on his office, the Kerala High Court said the chief minister is “answerable” to the people over the appointment of his personal staff. The court ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into two land “grabbing” cases against his former gunman, Salim Raj.
The court held that authorities at the helm of affairs in the state have not been “prudent and responsible” in appointing personal staff with integrity and character.
The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) should be a model institution serving the people of the state, the court stressed.
Delivering its 132-page judgment - while allowing petitions in an almost decade-old dispute over a piece of land at Kalamassery in Ernakulam and alleged attempts to grab land at Kadakkampally in Thiruvananthapuram by forging documents - the court said the CBI should complete its probe in nine months.
The Communist opposition was quick to demand Chandy’s resignation citing the strongly worded judgment while the chief minister rejected it saying it was not necessary at the moment as he was standing before the people’s court with the general elections round the corner.
“Like they did in a corruption case that led to the loss of billions of rupees to the exchequer, we did not import expensive lawyers from New Delhi to block the CBI probe. Instead we submitted an affidavit supporting the demand,” Chandy told reporters in Alappuzha.
Asked whether he would resign if the “people’s court” delivered its judgment against him, Chandy said: “My life is an open book and my position is transparent. Let the verdict come and that’s final. You know me better and what I would do. I would never do anything that weakens the judiciary”.
Besides the two cases, a criminal case was also registered against Raj for kidnapping by the Kozhikode Police last year. One of Chandy’s personal aides was also arrested in a cheating case involving a couple who duped the public to the tune of around Rs60mn.
The court held that the incidents had “evoked shock “ among people of the state and “showed that people at the helm of affairs of the administration in the state had not been prudent and responsible in appointing personal staff with integrity and character”.
While welcoming the court’s decision to hand over the case to the CBI, the chief minister claimed he was denied the basic right of a citizen to be heard before delivering such a judgment.
“I never tried to protect anyone involved in any kind of crimes. I respect the judiciary and I am of the strong opinion that nothing should be done or said to undermine such institutions in a democracy,” he said.