Court dismisses VACB’s request to close graft case

Thiruvananthapuram: The vigilance special court on Thursday dismissed the request of the vigilance and anti-corruption bureau to close the brewery corruption case filed by former opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala.
The court also admitted Chennithala’s petition that the secretary (taxes) should be asked to produce the relevant government files during the time of allotment of breweries before the court.
The vigilance had stated before the court that the high court had already declined the request for a vigilance probe, and another request seeking sanction for the probe was declined by the governor. On the back of these, the agency had stated that it should be allowed to close the probe. Chennithala had argued that even though the order sanctioning the breweries was cancelled, there were several irregularities involved in it, which will be clear from the government files in this regard.
The matter came up in October 2018, when the government order in this regard surfaced in the public domain. As per the orders, since June 12, 2018, the government had given clearance for three breweries and a compounding, blending and bottling unit in the state at Thrissur, Ernakulam and Kannur. The brewery clearances were granted to Power Infratech Private Ltd, Sreedharan Brewery Private Ltd and Apollo Distilleries and Breweries Private Ltd. The government had given clearance to Sri Chakra Distilleries Private Ltd for coming up with a compounding, blending and bottling unit.
The opposition had raised allegations of high-level corruption in the sanctioning of the breweries and blending unit. The opposition had cited that the order issued by then principal secretary (taxes) Vinod Rai on September 29, 1999 that no application for sanctioning a blending unit in the state needed to be considered.
Chennithala, the then opposition leader, had alleged that the government altered the policy that was in place since 1999, without informing even the cabinet, only to cover up its irregularities and corruption.
In the wake of the controversies, the CPM state leadership had asked the government to re-examine the permissions and the government had cancelled the order sanctioning the breweries and the distilleries.