Kerala Life Mission rip-off: CBI can probe however prison legal responsibility cannot be prolonged to politicians, says HC

Express News Service
KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday granted permission to the CBI to proceed the investigation within the alleged Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) violations over funds obtained from a overseas sponsor for implementation of the Life Mission housing mission at Wadakkancherry in Thrissur district.

The case regarding the Life Mission, the Kerala authorities’s flagship housing mission for the homeless, includes a corruption allegation into the award of the contract to assemble 144 flats in Thrissur district’s Wadakkancherry to Unitac, a development firm, on the behest of M Sivasankar, the then principal secretary of the chief minister in 2019. For this goal, Dubai-based Red Crescent signed an MoU with the Life Mission to supply monetary support (AED 10 million or Rs 20 crore) to construct the dwellings, the contract for which was given to Unitac.

Justice P Somarajan in his order additionally indicated the function of senior authorities officers within the alleged corruption within the housing mission saying the “very nature of the mischief done in furtherance of MoU would suggest the involvement of highly educated professionals – a mastermind behind it”.

The courtroom, nonetheless, made it clear that prison legal responsibility can’t be prolonged to political executives together with the chief minister, ministers, and legislatures merely on the bottom that they’ve taken a coverage determination to implement the mission.

The courtroom additionally vacated the keep for the probe whereas dismissing the petition filed by the CEO of LIFE Mission and Santhosh Eappen, MD of Unitac looking for to quash the FIR towards them.

The courtroom identified that it was a recognized undeniable fact that the LIFE Mission is a mission formulated and launched by the state authorities primarily based on a coverage determination. “Then it is up to the civil servants, the non-political executive (permanent executive) to implement it by due process of law. The typical nature of the facts involved in the case would reveal a high profile intellectual fraud played in furtherance of MoU to avoid an audit by CAG and to get kickbacks and gratifications,” the courtroom famous.

The job of the non-political government is to make sure correct implementation of legal guidelines handed by the legislature and to “check and balance” whereas formulating and implementing coverage selections below the regulation in pressure. The perform of IAS officers, who’re the everlasting government (non-political government), is to help the political government (the chief minister, ministers, and the legislature) to formulate and execute coverage selections, in addition to the executive issues, the courtroom stated.

The officers’ failure to handle the difficulty or mischief, if any, within the matter of its implementation of the housing mission, can’t, by itself, be a floor to increase any prison legal responsibility towards the political government, except the identical was dropped at their discover with its authorized penalties in writing or by meaning they’ve obtained a private profit with data of the breach or mischief performed.

“Even proactive steps taken by the political executive in the implementation of the project/policy decisions may not, by itself, make them responsible for any criminal liability, especially in a case of this nature, wherein a well designed and intelligently hidden agenda was scrupulously employed by the civil servants in connivance with the middleman, the Consulate General of UAE, Trivandrum, unless it was known or made known to them with its legal consequences specified in writing by the civil servants, who are bound to do it by exercising a healthy confrontation,” noticed the courtroom.

In this case, it seems that the alleged violations had been on the time of implementation of a part of the LIFE Mission mission by the everlasting members connected to it – the IAS officers with Swapna Suresh, Sandeep Nair, Sarith, Santhosh Eappen and their allies. “The mere fact that a policy decision was taken by the chief minister, the ministers or the legislature, may not by itself be sufficient to extend criminal liability against them for the wrong done by the non-political executive attached with the project and their allies,” it stated.