Supreme Court Adjourns SNC-Lavlin Case Hearing For Two Weeks; Says No Adjournment On Next Date

The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing in the SNC-Lavlin case by two weeks.

A batch of petitions including the ones filed by the CBI against the discharge of the present Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and few other officials and also other petitions filed by accused persons challenging the rejection of their discharge pleas are before the Supreme Court.

Today, a bench comprising Justices UU Lalit and Indira Banerjee adjourned the hearing based on a letter circulated by one of the petitioners seeking adjournment.

Senior Advocate Devdutt Kamat, appearing for Congress leader VM Sudheeran, who has intervened in the case, urged the bench to not grant further adjournments in the case.

Following this, the bench observed in the order that the counsels should not seek adjournment on the next hearing date.

The case is related to alleged corruption in the contract given to Canadian company SNC Lavlin for the renovation of hydro-electric projects in Kerala.

In November 2013, the Special CBI Court at Thiruvanathapuram discharged Pinarayi Vijayan, who was the Electricity Minister during 1997-98 when SNC Lavlin undertook the contract works, and few other officials who were chargesheeted as accused in the case.

In August 2017, the Kerala High Court upheld the discharge of Pinarayi Vijayan and the two other accused but allowed the CBI's plea against the discharge of 4 other accused.

In October last year, while considering the CBI's SLP against the High Court order, the SC bench had orally observed that strong evidence was required to dislodge the concurrent findings made by two courts.

"But if two courts have concurrently held that these respondents need not be tried and have been discharged, we will need very strong submissions on your behalf for dislodging the opinion of these two courts",Justice Lalit, the presiding judge, had told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for the CBI.