Vigilance probe against Chandy

In a major setback to Congress-led UDF, the Cabinet on Wednesday initiated vigilance probe against former chief minister Oommen Chandy, former power minister Aryadan Mohammed and Mr Chandy’s aides for cheating solar case accused Saritha S. Nair and colluding with her in cheating her customers.

Former home minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan will face criminal charges for shielding Mr Chandy from a criminal probe.

The Cabinet also constituted a special investigation team headed by DGP Rajesh Dewan to probe Mr Chandy, Mr Mohammed, former ministers Adoor Prakash and A.P. Anil Kumar, K.C. Venugopal and Jose K. Mani, both MPs, and Hibi Eden, MLA, for rape, sexual harassment and outraging the modesty of women based on Ms Nair’s letter of July 17, 2013.

In a major setback to Congress-led UDF, the Cabinet on Wednesday initiated vigilance probe against former chief minister Oommen Chandy, former power minister Aryadan Mohammed and Mr Chandy's aides for cheating solar case accused Saritha S. Nair and colluding with her in cheating her customers.

The Cabinet took these decisions based on the recommendations of Justice Sivarajan Commission which probed the solar fraud case and the legal opinion received from the advocate general and director general of prosecutions on the action to be taken. The commission report along with action taken report will be tabled in Assembly within six months.

The commission is believed to have found that the SIT formed by the previous government made dubious attempts to save Mr Chandy from criminal cases and ignored other evidence.

The solar commission recommended that the footage of CCTV installed on Secretariat premises be saved for a minimum of one year, 500 GB hard disk should be installed, and the footage should be examined once in 15 days.