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Consumerfed Corruption, a thorough probe into the matter is highly essential : Kerala High Court

posted Aug 26, 2014, 8:51 PM by Law Kerala   [ updated Aug 26, 2014, 8:54 PM ]
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The Kerala High Court on Tuesday (26th August, 2014) in Crl.M.C. No.5261 of 2013 held that it was highly essential to conduct a thorough probe into the against Kerala State Co-operative Consumers Federation (Consumerfed) former managing director Riji G Nair, and the then chief manager R Jayakumar, who are accused in a corruption case.

Justice A Hariprasad passed the order while dismissing petitions filed by Riji G Nair and Jayakumar seeking to quash the FIR and the further proceedings of the case that is pending before the Court of Enquiry Commissioner and the Special Judge, Thrissur.

Brief facts

Petitioners are the accused 1 and 2 in Cr.V.C.No.7 of 2013 registered by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, Central Range, Ernakulam(in short, "the VACB"). Annexure-A is the copy of the first information report in the case. Copy of a report submitted before the Court of Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge, Thrissur (in short, "the Court") for adding names of petitioners as accused is Annexure-B. The offences alleged against the petitioners along with other accused are punishable under Sections 120B of the Indian Penal Code (in short, "IPC") and Section 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (in short, "the PC Act"). 1st petitioner during 2011-12 functioned as the Managing Director of Kerala State Co-operative Consumer's Federation (in short, "the Consumer Fed") and the 2nd petitioner was the Chief Manager of the Consumer Fed during that period. It is the allegation that while procuring various essential commodities during the year 2012 and subsequent thereto, the accused persons diluted tender conditions and violated the provisions of the Stores Purchase Manual (in short, "the Manual") so as to cause huge financial loss to the Government and corresponding unlawful gain to the suppliers of the Consumer Fed. Further, they allowed the suppliers to supply inferior quality of essential commodities. Besides, they manipulated the records relating to stock in order to misappropriate essential commodities at various levels and thereby obtained unlawful pecuniary benefits and caused financial loss to the Government.

“Before registering an FIR against a public servant, the agency has to conduct a preliminary enquiry, but it was not done in this case,” the petitioners submitted.

According to them, their names were included just because they were the managing director and the chief manger of Consumerfed.

“All decisions with regard to the working of the Consumerfed are taken by its board of directors and the purchase committee,” they pointed out.

Additional Director General of Prosecutions (ADGP) Tom Jose Padinjarekkara submitted that during the course of investigation it was found that the Consumerfed was not having its own purchase manual and guidelines for procuring essential commodities.

It was bound to follow the State purchase manual.

The ADGP also submitted that on perusal of the tender proceedings adopted by the Consumerfed it was found that conditions, which are essentially required to safeguard against the bidders withdrawing halfway, were purposefully omitted.

“A detailed investigation is essential to ascertain the actual magnitude of the corruption.

“The security amounts collected from the employees, to the tune of `760,000 were utilised for miscellaneous expenses, indicating that there was gross financial indiscipline in the office of the Consumerfed,” the State said.

The court said that the plea of the petitioners that proceedings were launched without proper preliminary inquiry was unsustainable.

The court also said that claim that the Consumerfed was not bound to follow the store purchase manual was not acceptable.

Advocate P. Vijaya Bhanu (Senior Advocate) M. Revikrishnan and Vipin Narayan appeared for the Petitioners.

State of Kerala represented By Shri Tom Jose Padinjarekkara,. Addl.director General Of Prosecution

Advocates M.V. Thamban, K.V. Anil Kumar, R. Reji, Thara Thamban, B. Bipin, K. Subash Chandra Bose, P.R. Premachandren and T.S. Maya (Thiyadil) appeared for the Respondents