Thomas was not cleared in graft case: Kerala govt
PTI
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 10
The blame game over the central vigilance commissioner’s appointment fiasco refused to die down today with the Kerala government asserting that it had not cleared P J Thomas in the graft case and wanted to proceed against him.
The State government came up with a letter to the Centre written in 2006 that it wanted to go ahead with the graft case against Thomas.
The letter, a copy of which was made available to the media, surfaced a day after Chief Minister V S Achuthandan hit back at his Maharashtra counterpart Prithviraj Chavan, who was then incharge of Department of Personnel and Training, for blaming Kerala government for the CVC muddle.
In New Delhi, Chavan said his statement was “misquoted and twisted” by the Kerala CM.
“All I had stated in my press conference in Pune was that Thomas was appointed chief secretary by the government of Kerala,” he said.
In Pune, Chavan had sought to pass the buck to the Kerala government.
He had said DoPT had suggested three names— two retired officers and one serving— for the post of CVC. One of them was chief secretary in a state to be brought to Delhi. “Vigilance clearance is done by the State.”
In the October 10, 2006 letter to the secretary to the Union Department of Personnel and Training, Kerala’s Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Lizzy Jacob had wanted to be treated as withdrawn the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government’s decision to close the palm oil import corruption case.
“I am directed to request the government of India to treat the (State) government letter with the request to withdraw the proposal seeking sanction to prosecute P J Thomas and Jiji Thomson under Prevention of Corruption Act as withdrawn and to accord sanction to prosecute Thomas and Jiji Thomson as requested on December 31, 1999,” the letter said.
Achuthanandan had yesterday accused Chavan of “lying” on the issue to “hide” his fault.
The case refers to alleged corruption in import of palmolein from Malaysia by the UDF government headed by late K Karunakaran in 1991.
Thomas, whose appointment as central vigilance commissioner has been quashed by the Supreme Court, was the food secretary at the time and Thomson managing director of the State civil supplies corporation.
In December 2006, when Congress leader Oommen Chandy was the chief minister, the state government decided to close the case. However, the decision was rescinded after Achuthanandan became the chief minister in May 2006 as he had vigorously pursued the case from the start.
Achuthanandan’s reaction came in response to Chavan’s claim that the vigilance clearance for Thomas was given by Kerala. “Chavan should have kept the dignity of his post while making such statements,” Achuthanandan had said.
Under attack over Thomas’ appointment as CVC, the prime minister had told the Rajya Sabha that he was unaware of the
corruption case against Thomas and virtually blamed Chavan, saying the information about the pending chargesheet against Thomas was not provided to the committee.
Asked why Thomas was empanelled as secretary to the government of India despite a chargesheet against him, Chavan said, “That question needs to be answered. You need to know the process of how it happens. You must ask the people who are involved in the process”. He did not clarify further.
