- Home
- /
- Top Stories
- /
- [SNC-Lavalin] If 2 Courts...
[SNC-Lavalin] If 2 Courts Concurrently Allowed Discharge, Strong Submissions Needed To Dislodge The Judgments: SC Tells SG
Mehal Jain
8 Oct 2020 1:15 PM IST
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear on October 16 the CBI appeal challenging the Kerala High Court verdict upholding a special court's decision to allow the discharge petition of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, one of the accused in the SNC-Lavalin case."This is a case where the accused were discharged despite a detailed charge sheet having been filed by the CBI. I...
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear on October 16 the CBI appeal challenging the Kerala High Court verdict upholding a special court's decision to allow the discharge petition of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, one of the accused in the SNC-Lavalin case.
Pending the proceedings, some of the accused made application for discharge before the trial court. After hearing both sides, the trial Judge allowed the applications and discharged the accused Nos.1 to 5, 7 and 8 by order dated 5.11.2013, under Section 239 Cr.P.C. Aggrieved by the said order of discharge, the CBI has come up in revision before the High Court.
a. The trial court wrongly granted discharge in favour of the accused Nos.2 and 3, who have not made application for discharge;
b. The trial court wrongly and unnecessarily interpreted the scope and ambit of Section 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and decided the said question of law at the very preliminary stage of framing charge;
c. Instead of examining the prosecution records to see whether there is a prima facie case to proceed against the accused, the learned trial Judge examined the whole evidence, and practically decided the case on merits, and thereby exceeded the limit of jurisdiction.
d. The trial court has not properly gone into the various aspects of corruption or misconduct as against the different accused, and without probing into those aspects, the trial court mainly dealt with the allegations against the 7th accused, and gave a pre-mature termination to the whole trial process wrongly.
By order dated August 23, 2017, the Kerala High Court found that the prosecution in this case does not have sufficient and satisfactory materials, which would make out a prima facie case against the accused Nos.1,7 and 8. "To frame a charge against them, there must be something before the court, to form a judicious opinion that they might have committed the offences alleged. Even if the allegations as against these three accused are accepted, such acts will not by itself amount to an act of misconduct punishable under Section 13 (1) (d) of the P.C Act. In the absence of any material or circumstance to show that these three persons had any sort of involvement as part of any conspiracy, they cannot be roped in under Section 120B I.P.C also. The materials produced by the prosecution as against these three accused are not sufficient to form a judicious opinion and to come to a prima facie finding that these three accused had any dishonest role or involvement in the deal between the SNC Lavalin and the KSEB. There is reason to believe that the accused Nos.1 and 8 acted only as Government Secretaries and they placed materials before the Cabinet only on the basis of the materials furnished by the KSEB. There is nothing to show that these Government Secretaries had any dishonest role at any stage of the transaction, or that they had any reason to cause any wrongful gain to the SNC Lavalin, or that they had made any gain unlawfully", observed the Single Judge.