Kochi: Kerala High Court on Monday upheld a single judge's verdict turning down Central Bureau Investigation probe into vigilance director Jacob Thomas taking up a private job while on leave. The plea alleged that his act was in violation of the Central service rules. A division bench upheld the order dismissing the appeal of Sathyan Naravoor of Kannur. Mr Naravoor argued that the officer took a three-month leave while serving as the managing director of the Kerala Transport Development Financial Corporation in 2009, and worked as a director of the TKM Institute of Management in Kollam at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh violating rules.
The single judge had pointed out that the purpose of availing of leave was for research, which seemed to have been done by him during the period. There was nothing on record which "gave rise to a reasonable suspicion of mala fides into the verification done by the police into the allegations" and that "there was no scope for any further investigation, much less by a premier agency like the CBI." Besides, whether it involved corrupt practice was not made out in the writ petition. So, the CBI inquiry did not appear to be warranted.
