Muvattupuzha Vigilance Court gives Jacob Thomas clean chit in solar panel case

KOCHI: The Muvattupuzha Vigilance Court on Thursday dismissed a petition against Vigilance director Jacob Thomas alleging irregularities in the installation of solar panels in port offices when he was the port director. Dismissing the complaint, the court said such complaints should be avoided as they only waste the time of the court. Gireesh Babu, a native of Kalamasserry, was the complainant. According to the complaint, the agreement signed by Port Department for installing solar panels at various port offices for Rs 35 lakh and Rs 1.64 crore has resulted in loss to the government. The court, however, found no merit in the complaint and said it was not worth forwarding even for a quick verification.

"On going through the inspection report of the finance wing, the work of solar panels was entrusted to SIDCO and KELTRON after obtaining administrative sanction from the government. These two agencies are government agencies and hence the action of entrusting the work to the government agencies cannot be considered as an offence of criminal misconduct. Here the beneficiary of the act is government itself and hence the court find that the action cannot come under the purview of the criminal misconduct as envisaged in the act," the court observed. Apart from Mr Thomas, other respondents included SIDCO managing director, principal secretary port development, Keltron managing director managing director of Safe Guard Lightings and managing director of MRO-Tek Bengaluru.