A special court here on Friday heard that a preliminary inquiry by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) had turned up no evidence to prosecute the agency’s former Director N. Sankar Reddy on the suspicion of having derailed the investigation into the bar licence renewal bribery case against former Finance Minister K.M. Mani.
Legal adviser, VACB, C.C. Augustine told Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge A. Badharudeen that the “quick verification” had debunked the allegations raised by the complainant Paichira Nawaz.
The agency has also filed a report seeking the dismissal of Mr. Nawaz’s petition for good. The court gave the petitioner time till February 7 to file his objection, if any.
The details of the VACB's inquiry report was yet to become public and largely remained under wraps.
On September 23, Mr. Badharudheen had ordered a preliminary inquiry into the allegation that Mr. Reddy had “intervened” in the politically sensitive case to give Mr. Mani, a “clean chit” and Investigating Officer (IO) R. Sukeshan, SP, was “part of the game.”
Legal circles viewed the outcome of the pre-cursory inquiry against Mr. Reddy as one that could have a close bearing on the case against Mr. Mani.
In his order, the judge had noted that he perused the case diary (CD). The internal communications indicated that Mr. Reddy had attempted to “negatived” (reject) the findings of Mr. Sukeshan, which would have “likely incriminated the accused.” He had also observed in his order that the “remarks (in the CD) are self speaking as to what transpired during the initial and further investigations.”
The court had earlier rejected two reports filed by the VACB absolving Mr. Mani of all guilt in the graft case and ordered further investigation which was still on.
