A Vigilance court here on Monday ordered a probe to ascertain whether the Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, who, as the then Finance Minister, had any role to play in the 1992 palmolein oil import deal.
Among those accused in the case include Mr P. J. Thomas, who went on to lose his position as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, and late Mr K. Karunakaran, the then Chief Minister of Kerala.
Loss to exchequer
Mr Thomas was listed as the sixth accused in the case relating to import of 32,000 tonnes of palmolein from Malaysia at enhanced prices, which was stated to have caused loss of Rs 2.32 crore to the exchequer.
Mr Thomas was the Food Secretary and also Director of the State Civil Supplies Corporation. Mr Karunakaran was the first accused in the case.
Meanwhile, the Opposition Left Democratic Front has asked Mr Chandy to resign since his continuation as Chief Minister was not tenable under the emerging circumstances.
While passing the order, the Special Vigilance Judge rejected a report filed by investigators earlier in April stating that there was no need for further probe to add any more to the list of the accused.
REVISED REPORT
The judge went on to ask the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to submit the revised probe report within the next three months.
On Monday, the court rejected the earlier report mainly on two counts: One, Mr Chandy had, in his capacity as the then finance minister, signed a file for pushing palmolein import as an exceptional item into the agenda of the Cabinet meeting.
Two, the file had gathered dust in the finance minister's office for a period of one-and-a-half months.
These provided sufficient grounds to surmise that Mr Oommen Chandy was indeed aware of the nitty-gritty of the deal.