For the first time since Independence, the Supreme Court today sentenced a former cabinet minister of a state to one year’s rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case.
The court passed the order against Congress leader and former Kerala power minister
R Balakrishna Pillai on an appeal moved by present Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan when he was in the Opposition. The chief minister had appealed against the acquittal of Pillai by the Kerala High Court. The special court had convicted Pillai, the contractor and then chairman of the electricity board. The supreme court has sentenced similarly.
The Supreme Court order is final, though there is a provision for review which is normally not effective.
According to the judgment delivered by Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, the high court had not weighed the facts of the Idamalayar dam scam which erupted in the state two decades ago.
Apart from the one-year sentence, Pillai has also been asked to pay a fine of '10,000, failing which he will have to undergo one more month of rigorous imprisonment.
The Supreme Court upheld the prosecution plea that Pillai had entered into a criminal conspiracy causing a loss of over '2 crore to the Kerala State Electricity Board. According to the charges, the minister awarded contracts for construction of a power tunnel and surge shaft of the Idamalayar hydro electricity power project to a contractor at inordinately high rates. The court stated that there was clear evidence of Pillai’s involvement in the deal.
The judgment regretted that corruption cases involving political personalities had been dragging endlessly in the country and pointed that in the present case, though the scandal took place in 1982, the prosecution was launched only in 1991. Therefore, the court directed all trial courts in the country dealing with corruption cases to dispose of cases speedily.
