KOCHI: Justice K Harilal of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday recused himself from hearing the petition challenging the Thiruvananthapuram Vigilance Court’s directive to register an FIR against the persons  allegedly involved in the Travancore Titanium corruption case and conduct a probe.

When the petition filed by T Balakrishnan, former chairman of the board of directors of the TTP, seeking to quash the Vigilance court order came up for hearing, the Single Judge made it clear that he is avoiding the case as he had earlier appeared for one of the respondent - Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala in another case.

Another Single Judge had further stayed proceedings in the case pending before Vigilance Court.

The Vigilance Court ordered to register an FIR against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, PWD Minister V K Ebrahim Kunju and six others.

The procedure adopted by the Special Judge is unheard of. The learned Special Judge, at a pre-cognizance stage considered the material and weighed the materials discussed in the preliminary report and came to a conclusion, the petition stated.

The special judge also failed to appreciate one important aspect that the petitioners as well as some of the other accused were shown as accused in the capacity as public servant and the allegations have close nexus with their official capacity.

He pointed out that Special Judge, while disposing of the application, observed without giving an opportunity to the proposed accused, came to the conclusion that sanction under Section 19 is not required to prosecute the accused since they have already ceased from the office.

But, the Special Judge failed to appreciate the fact that the offences mentioned in the complaint also included an offence punishable under Section 120 B IPC for which sanction under Section 197 CrPC is required.

Sanction under Section 197 CrPC is mandatory and the Special Judge, without considering the dictum laid down by the apex court, forwarded the complaint to the VACB for registration and investigation and submission of the final report, petitioner stated.

The gist of the allegation is that the accused persons conspired together to siphon off the fund of TTPL in furtherance of the conspiracy with MECON, Ranchi, Uttaranchal, who was appointed as consultant for the construction of effluent treatment plant. It was alleged that, as per the agreement with the MECON company the consultancy charges were fixed at `3.5 crores, but an excess amount was paid to the company without fresh contract.

The total estimated cost as per the directions of the consultant company would come to around `258 crores. No global tender was invited to award the construction of the effluent treatment plant.

The allegations were that instead of erecting an effluent treatment plant costing around `8 crores the accused persons colluded with other persons and tried to erect more expensive machinery with an intention to make an unlawful gain to the accused.

• [Editor:Mango]