Former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Bharatiya Janata Party leader AP Abdullakutty have been cleared of sexual harassment charges linked to the 2013 solar scam case by the Central Bureau of Investigation, reported The New Indian Express on Wednesday.
With this, the CBI has found all the accused persons to be innocent in the case.
The first information report, registered in 2018, had stated that Chandy, a Congress leader, sexually assaulted the complainant in 2012, when he was the Kerala chief minister, in exchange for promoting her business. Besides Chandy and Abdullakutty, the complainant had also accused Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Hibi Eden, Adoor Prakash and AP Anil Kumar of sexual assault.
In the solar scam, the woman who had made the sexual assault allegations and a man had allegedly duped investors of lakhs of rupees after promising to install solar panels for them. They were arrested in October 2013, and sentenced to three years in jail on December 16, 2016. Chandy and other ministers were also accused of taking large amounts of money as part of the scam.
The CBI had begun its inquiry in the harassment case in 2021.
In its report submitted to the the Thiruvananthapuram Chief Judicial Magistrate court on Tuesday, the CBI said that there was no evidence to back up the allegations.
It said that Chandy was not present at Cliff House, the official residence of the Kerala chief minister, on the day of the crime as the complainant had alleged. The report also said that there were discrepancies in the complainant’s statements.
Meanwhile, the complainant said that she will not initiate further proceedings against Chandy considering his age and health, reported Onmanorama.
Congress seeks apology from CM
After Chandy and others were exonerated, the Congress on Wednesday demanded an apology from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, reported PTI.
It alleged that Vijayan had handed over the case to the CBI deliberately for insulting the Congress leaders.
“Who would owe the responsibility and give an answer for the pain and humiliation suffered by the leaders and their family members?” Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly VD Satheesan asked while speaking to reporters in Kochi.
Satheesan also said such attempts to intentionally insult political leaders should not be repeated.
Kerala Congress chief K Sudhakaran said that the CBI has conducted an honest investigation in the case. He thanked Vijayan for handing over the case to the CBI and said that the decision actually turned out to be good for Chandy.
“Vijayan had thought that Chandy could be trapped through the case, but his intention did not materialise,” Sudhakaran added.
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