Thiruvananthapuram: The CBI is learnt to have decided to move a delay coadunation appeal in the Supreme Court along with an apology for the delay in the Lavalin case. This was because they were finding it difficult to submit an appeal against the High Court verdict that acquitted Pinarayi Vijayan within the stipulated time. According to rule, an appeal against this has to be made within 90 days since the pronouncement of the verdict. This time period would come to end on November 21.
However, the CBI has said that it’s not possible to submit an appeal within that date. The delay was because the CBI wanted more time to conduct a legal examination of the case. The indications were that the appeal may be submitted by the end of December 27 or January 2018. The High Court verdict acquitting Mr Vijayan was delivered on August 23. Besides Mr Vijayan, the High Court had also acquitted former power secretary K. Mohan-achandran, and former power sector joint secretary A. Francis. However, the court had ordered that KSEB former chairman R. Sivadasan, former chief accountant officer K.G. Rajasekharan Nair, former chief engineer Kasturi Rangan Iyer must face trial.
Mr Iyer, who was among those who asked to face trial, moved the Supreme Court seeking relief, maintaining that the award of the contact was based on a collective decision. The case related to a financial scandal about the hydroelectric infrastructure contract bet-ween the KSEB and Canadian company SNC-Lavalin in 1995 when Mr Vijayan was electricity minister, which resulted in an alleged net loss of '374 crore to the exchequer.
