Thaindian News

Kochi April 17 (IANS) Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Kerala state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who is among the accused in the Rs.374 crore SNC Lavalin scam, Saturday earned a major reprieve when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said there is no evidence to prove that he had made any financial gains.
The CBI’s stand came in an affidavit filed in the CBI court after the original petitioner in the case, ‘Crime’ editor T.P.Nandakumar approached the court to find out the status of the case after Vijayan secured bail December last year.

The affidavit also pointed out that there was no basis of the allegations leveled by the petitioner that Vijayan had traveled to Singapore several times.

Vijayan, who is currently on a trip to the Middle East, said that the truth has finally come out and he was happy about it.

“It is now clear that a section of the media was out spreading canards about me after joining hands with vested interests and that is why my party stood solidly behind me,” he said.

The case had generated huge interest because it was the first time ever that a CPI-M politburo member had to appear before a court in a corruption case. The CBI filed charge sheets against nine accused, including Vijayan, in June last year.

Vijayan, as the then state power minister, had inked the final agreement in 1997 for renovating three power plants in the state.

Meanwhile, the CBI also informed the court that the investigation was underway on whether former Congress minister G. Karthikeyan, who held the electricity portfolio in the A.K. Antony cabinet (1995-96), had any role to play and the final report would be submitted shortly.

It was Karthikeyan who had signed the initial agreement with Lavalin and Vijayan took it forward and inked the contract with the Canadian company.