High Court Allows Corruption Case to Continue

Trivandrum, India, Feb. 23 2003 (INS News) -- Kerala’s High Court has ruled that the consent of Kerala State Parliament Speaker Lok Sabha was not needed to continue vigilance proceedings against Former Chief Minister and Senior Congress Leader K Karunakaran in the ten-year old Palmolein corruption case.

The ruling by Justice Krishnan Nair comes on a review petition filed by the previous LDF government. In the judgement, he said that since Karunakaran was not a member of the parliament when he was involved in the corruption case, there was no need for the sanction of parliament speaker for proceeding against him.

Justice Nair pointed out that since the vigilance case was that Karunakaran committed the alleged crime in his capacity as the Chief Minister and not as a member of the Parliament, no consent is required.

Karunakaran has been accused to taken part in a criminal conspiracy to import 15,000 tonnes of palmolein from a Malaysian company in violation of the State and Federal laws. Critics claim the deal was done at an inflated price resulting in a loss of Rs 23 million to the State Treasury.

The state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau had filed charges against Karunakaran. The vigilance bureau's is claiming that Karunakaran and others had received money from the deal.

Karunakaran, who was then the chief minister, had arranged the deal through the director of Power and Energy Ltd., Malaysia and its representatives in India.

-- Sam Asharaf - South Asia Correspondent in Trivandrum, India
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