Kochi, May 5 (Inditop) Kerala Advocate General C.P. Sudhakara Prasad Tuesday said that his suggestion that the state government need not sanction the prosecution of CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in a corruption case was not aimed at protecting anybody.
“I have done nothing wrong and I have not protected anyone by my report to the government,” Prasad told reporters here.
Prasad reportedly submitted a sealed letter to the chief minister’s office Saturday, saying the government need not give the sanction for Vijayan’s prosecution in the SNC Lavalin corruption scam as the charges against him were not clear.
Prasad also said that he had not been given all the documents he had asked from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) .
“Even though I asked for all the documents from the CBI, I was not given the entire documents but I got all the important files for me to come to the conclusion. I had to speed up because the last date for my opinion as given by the High Court was May 11 and hence I had to submit it by Saturday,” said Prasad.
He added that Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan had written to him to speed up his opinion because any delay would cause a huge embarrassment to the government.
Vijayan has been accused of wrongly awarding contracts to Canadian company SNC Lavalin for renovation of two hydro-power projects 12 years ago when he was the state’s power minister.
The CBI in February wrote to Kerala Governor R.S. Gavai seeking permission to prosecute Vijayan. According to rules, the governor’s permission is necessary to prosecute a minister or a former minister. The state government sought legal opinion on the CBI plea.
Now the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, led by the CPI-M, will hold a crucial cabinet meeting Wednesday to decide Vijayan’s fate.
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Oommen Chandy, however, has asked Achuthanandan to disregard the advocate general’s opinion.
rounak