Chandy to take legal steps for getting solar scam probe report

Former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy said today he will take legal steps to secure a copy of the judicial commission report on the 2013 multi-crore solar scam, which had rocked the state under the previous Congress-led UDF government headed by him.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's stand that a copy of the Justice G Sivarajan Commission report cannot be given before it was tabled in the state assembly was "unfortunate", Chandy told reporters here.
"I am not asking for the report on the presumption that it will be favourable to us ... Only if we get a copy of the report, we will know what allegations have been made against us, the circumstantial evidences and statements on the basis of which the government had decided to proceed against us," he said.

The report was necessary to "factually evaluate" the commission's findings and government decision based on it, he added.
Indicating that the report had been leaked, Chandy asked, "How did CPI(M) leader T K Hamsa get to know of the report's details a day before the chief minister briefed the media on the government's decisions on the commission report?"
"Hamsa had clearly said six people were accused in the case," Chandy said.

The senior Congress leader had yesterday written to the state government to give him a copy of the report on the basis of which the LDF government had ordered a vigilance and SIT probe against Chandy, two of his former ministerial colleagues and two former legislators.

"I request the government to provide a copy of the commission's report, based on which criminal proceedings are sought to be taken against me. The government should not deny me my rights as a citizen," Chandy said in a letter to Chief Minister Vijayan.
The Justice Sivarajan commission was appointed by the previous Chandy government after allegations surfaced that several people were duped of crores of rupees by the prime accused in the case Saritha S Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan, who offered them solar panel solutions.
Announcing the probe, Vijayan had said a criminal case would be registered and an Special Investigation Team would probe allegations of rape levelled by Nair against some politicians in her July 17, 2013 letter.

The charge against Radhakrishnan, who was home and vigilance minister in the Chandy Cabinet, was that he had tried to protect the former chief minister and "illegally" used police officers under him to "influence" the case.
According to the commission, a vigilance case should be registered against former power minister Aryadan Mohammed, as he had helped Nair's Team Solar company illegally.
Some Congress state ministers, MPs and MLAs were named by Nair in the letter written by her when she was behind bars in connection with the solar scam.