The Kerala High Court yesterday rejected former finance minister K M Mani’s plea against the investigation into an Rs650mn tax evasion case.
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau had filed a first information report (FIR) after questioning the ex-minister. It claimed he had favoured a broiler chicken dealer by allowing a reduction in sales tax dues.
“Let the vigilance investigate,” high court judge B Kemal Pasha observed while rejecting his plea. The court said it would not interfere in the ongoing investigation as a charge-sheet had already been registered.
The 82-year-old Kerala Congress (M) leader also faces a probe into allegations in connection with cutting taxes on beauty care products from 12.5% to 4%. The two tax cuts together allegedly led to a loss of Rs2bn to the exchequer.
The petitioner Noble Mathew, a dissident leader of his party, had also alleged that the nine-time minister whose party left the Congress-led alliance recently, had received a bribe of Rs150mn.
The charge-sheet stated there was primary evidence that Mani had given a reprieve to the Thrissur-based chicken supplier Thomson group for not paying Rs650mn of pending tax.
The charge-sheet adds that Mani had asked a deputy commissioner to help him in the fraud, stalled initiating any revenue recovery proceedings, and since the officer was not ready to co-operate, he was transferred.
There are eight other defendants in the case - his additional private secretary Jayachandran R, six poultry farm owners and Ayurveda beauty product companies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its desperate attempt to emerge as a major force in the state has been actively courting Mani, whose party has strong roots in the Christian heartland of central Kerala.
Mani is now facing at least four corruption cases related to bribery, cronyism and unjustifiable tax concessions while he was the finance and law minister under Oommen Chandy.
His party’s downfall began after the then opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist started parleys with him to topple Chandy and form an alternative government with him as the chief minister.
Mani was also the lone speaker from the rival camp at the CPM’s plenum in Palakkad in 2013, and the two parties had been avoiding attacking each other since then.