Supreme Court agrees to consider Jacob Thomas’ plea challenging Kerala HC

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider former Vigilance Director Jacob Thomas’ plea challenging initiation of contempt proceedings against him by Kerala High Court.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra posted the plea filed by the suspended IPS officer for hearing on April 2, the same day he has been directed to appear by the High Court before it.

The Kerala High Court had on March 20, initiated contempt proceedings against Mr. Thomas for making allegations against two High Court judges in a letter to the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC).

But Mr. Thomas clarified in his petition before the top court that his complaint to the CVC was “clearly against the prosecutors and the investigators who have misled the judicial system in arriving at a certain conclusion in high profile corruption cases involving politicians and ministers of the state.”

In his petition, filed through advocate Haris Beeran, Mr. Thomas said, “He does not intend to cast any allegations or aspersions against the Hon’ble Judges and that what he clearly intends by the said complaint is an enquiry into the way the high profile corruption cases have been handled by the investigators and conducted by the prosecution.”

Mr. Thomas had said in his complaint that several high profile cases “derailed or closed or negligently proceeded” as a result of the deficient representation by the prosecutors and investigators before the High Court Judges Justice P. Ubaid and Justice Abraham Mathew during 2017 and 2018. This may be enquired thoroughly for possible conspiracy, abuse of power and obstruction of justice, his complaint had said.

“The High Court without reading the complaint as a whole had picked up random sentences and entered a finding that the petitioner has prima facie committed contempt,” his petition stated.

The Kerala High Court initiated the contempt proceedings on a petition filed by lawyer B.H. Mansoor after it found that he made allegations which constituted criminal contempt as defined by the Contempt of Courts Act.

Observing that it was necessary to take further action on the petition, the court issued notice to Mr. Thomas and directed him to appear in person before the court on April 2.

According to the petition by Mr. Mansoor before the High Court, portions of the complaint were leaked and made public by Mr. Thomas intentionally and dishonestly to scandalise and lower the authority of the court.

The petition further alleged that being a senior public servant, he was well aware that the CVC had no authority to probe any of the allegations contained in the complaint. Despite all these, he had chosen to send the complaint containing derogatory and false statements to the CVC.

However, Mr. Thomas has claimed that he acted as a whistleblower in the case and sought protection from the contempt proceedings initiated against him.