Kochi: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday submitted before Kerala High Court that the CBI Special court had taken a wrong approach in the controversial SNC Lavalin case. The HC was considering a review petition filed by CBI challenging the order of Thiruvananthapuram CBI special court discharging Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and others. CBI argued that the lower court had not properly analysed issues such as the dishonest intention of the accused, pecuniary advantages gained by the accused and the conspiracy hatched by them.
The provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act had been “misread” by the lower court, he argued. He added the discharge order was “very cryptic”. The fundamentals of the order were untenable. He pointed out that that the CBI conducted the probe on the basis of a directive from the HC which found irregularities. Additional Solicitor General (south zone), K.M. Nataraj appeared for the CBI. The court will continue hearing on Friday. CBI informed that during the investigation it was revealed that Pinarayi Vijayan mooted the proposal to set up a cancer hospital in his capacity as minister for electricity. In a note addressed to the CM by Vijayan on April 7, 1997 it was mentioned that he had requested Lavalin company for assistance to set up a cancer hospital at Thalassery. During the hearing, the court asked CBI if any person except Canadian company-SNS Lavalin had gained from the deal.
Counsel for CBI submitted that apart from pecuniary gain, abuse of power comes under Prevention of Corruption Act. It informed that the state exchequer had suffered a huge loss to the tune of '374 crore through the illegal act. It submitted that the accused had hatched a criminal conspiracy to award the contract for the renovation and modernisation of the Pallivasal, Sengulam, and Panniar hydroelectric projects to SNC-Lavalin at an exorbitant cost. The accused persons abused their respective official positions with fraudulent position with fraudulent and dishonest intention and thereby awarded the contract to the company, by violating all Rules and regulations.
In furtherance of the criminal conspiracy the accused persons did not execute a binding agreement with Lavalin company in the matter of receiving the grant of '98.3 crore assured for Malabar Cancer Centre (MCC) and thus showed undue favour to the firm causing wrongful loss to KSEB/government exchequer. The non execution of binding agreement enabled Lavalin to back out from its commitments of arranging grant of '98.3 crore, they spent only Rs 12.5 crore for the MCC and thereby caused wrongful loss of Rs 86.25 crores to the government exchequer, CBI counsel informed the court.
