Kochi : There’s nothing that links Chief Minister to CMRL’s activities, the Government said in its plea, and sought the High Court to dismiss the politically-motivated revision petition. The allegation of CM’s involvement is baseless and unsustainable, said Director General of Prosecution TA Shaji who represented the government, further adding that, a Vigilance inquiry was unnecessary. The government’s explanation comes over revision petition filed by MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan seeking Vigilance probe on CM, after the court threw out Kuzhalnadan’s original petition for failing to produce any evidence to back his accusations.
For all applications that arrive on CM’s table, it is normal to transfer them to concerned department with a inscribed instruction to “take appropriate action.” At no point has the LDF government directed any private company to mine even a grain of mineral sand.
In 2007, the LDF government clarified its stand of not letting the private sector to do mining. In 2010 the LDF government rejected CMRL’s request for mining permit. It is UDF governments that granted mining licenses to private companies. Specifically, it was under AK Antony and Oomen Chandy’s tenure that CMRL gained permission for mineral sand mining. Under UDF rule, CMRL set up the Kerala Rare Earths and Minerals Ltd(KREML) in association with KSIDC for the mineral sand mining.
The agreements between CMRL and Exalogic are purely contracts between two private companies. Allegations of payment for un-rendered services are have no basis. The CMRL itself has detected nothing of that sort. No appellate authority has found any flaw with the Income Tax Settlement Board’s findings.
Given that permits for CMRL were all granted by the UDF governments, Kuzhalnadan in fact seeks to target his own camp, said DGP. Justice K Babu will hear the petition again on 29th, Monday.
