Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram   

Court rejects Vigilance report dropping graft charge

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM NOV. 2 . The Vigilance court today rejected the final report filed by the Government Secretary (Vigilance) that no action should be taken against the former director of the Alappuzha-based Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (KSDP), who is named as first accused in a corruption case relating to the loss of Rs 1.5 lakh to the KSDP in the purchase of glass vials, on the ground that no offence was made out against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).

In his order on the final report filed by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB), the Vigilance Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge, N. K. Balakrishnan, said that it seemed the decision to drop further action against Mr. Mohanty, a senior civil servant, was taken on a "fallacious premise or on wrong opinion''.

"No doubt, it is the prerogative of the Government to decline sanction to prosecute a public servant. But, that is no ground to say that the opinion of the Executive can be thrust or imposed upon the court. The court cannot be asked to give a stamp of approval to the finding of the "executives'' that offence under the PC Act was not made out in the matter," the Judge said.

If the report was to the effect that regardless of the evidence available to prosecute the accused, the Government was unwilling to grant prosecution sanction, then there was no option for the court but to close the case. "But here the report is not so'', Mr. Balakrishnan observed.

The court said that it could be gathered from the final report that Mr. Mohanty had abused his official position and deliberately caused wrongful loss to the KSDP.

Apart from Mohanty, who was also former Director, Public Relations, the KSDP's former Superintendent, Purchase, Production & Planning, T.P. Sasikumar, and the proprietor of the Mumbai- based Nutral Glass & Allied Industries, are the accused in the case, which was registered in the Vigilance Special Court here in November, 1996.

The case was that in April 1994, the accused had conspired with the proprietor of Nutral Glass and caused a loss of Rs. 1.5 lakhs to KSDP by purchasing four lakh glass vials from the firm after discarding the lowest quotation given by Kishore Pharma.

The court said the Vigilance report showed that the decision of the accused to buy Nutral Glass vials at a higher rate was not an erroneous decision based on any misconception of facts. But it was a "deliberate act'' or at any rate one of "culpable or gross'' negligence.

Through his act, the accused had enabled Nutral Glass to obtain pecuniary advantage which the company was not otherwise entitled to get, the court said.

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