Vigilance had written off three previous cases against Sooraj

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even though vigilance and anti-corruption bureau went on a crackdown against PWD secretary TO Sooraj two days ago, previous incidents prove that Sooraj had a special knack of getting out of vigilance traps. Three vigilance cases against Sooraj, registered in the last 10 years, were written off by the vigilance without subjecting him to a scrutiny of the judiciary.
There was a case of misappropriation of disaster management fund against TO Sooraj during his tenure as the district collector, Kozhikode. Though the vigilance registered a case based on the findings of preliminary enquiry in 2010, the vigilance closed the case citing that allegations were baseless. The allegation was that Sooraj collected Rs 1,24,465 from 12 institutions and an individual illegally for the disaster management fund. On July 13, 2012, the vigilance court admitted the closure report of vigilance and closed the case.
The second case was also registered during his tenure as Kozhikode collector. There were alleged irregularities in purchasing surgical instruments for Govt. General Hospital, Kozhikode. Though vigilance found the allegations true and filed chargesheet against the third and fourth accused. The first and second accused – project officer Dr M Vijayan and district collector T O Sooraj – were let off as the probe team found them innocent. Sidco former manager MJ Sasidharan and Oriental Surgicals managing partner TM Vasudevan are still facing trial at Kozhikode vigilance court in the case, reveal the documents sourced from the vigilance director’s office under the right to information act. In another incident, Vigilance conducted a surprise raid based on complaints about the handing over of vehicles involved in sand mining to owners by the Kozhikode district collector. However, the case was dropped after preliminary enquiry. The RTI reply from vigilance directorate says, “The report that didn’t recommend any action against T O Sooraj in the case was sent to the government on October 28, 2010 and the government accepted the recommendation on August 2, 2011”.
Human rights activist Jomon Puthenpurackal who had sought the status of probe in these cases in November, last year, said it was surprising how vigilance has now made the sudden move. “Documents clearly reveal that the vigilance itself had sabotaged various cases registered against him in the past”, he said.