Karunakaran cleared of corruption charges

The vigilance case against veteran Congress party leader K. Karunakaran that he has amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income has been dismissed. Passing the verdict, the Special Judge and Vigilance Commissioner here said a thorough inquiry had revealed that the charge could not be substantiated.

In his final report, the Superintendent of Police, Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau, had earlier stated that the case could be treated as "mistake of facts". The court was now accepting the report, said the verdict.

The report had said: "The accused being either the chief minister, minster, leader of the opposition, central minister, member of Parliament for the last 30 years, his perquisites and other entitlement were calculated and examined thoroughly by the investigating officer with the help of experts. It has come out that the accused cannot be said to possess assets disproportionate to his known sources of income".

Noting that the assets of the accused did not in any way provide prima facie material to proceed further, the judge held that "in view of the matter, it could be seen that there were allegations totally untrue, partially true and factually correct.

"All these allegations were gone into by the investigating officers to arrive at the conclusion". The ruling came on a petition filed by social activist Nawab Rajendran who charged that Karunakaran had amassed wealth as a public servant in various capacities as a public leader.

Investigations showed that the income of Karunakaran and his family from January 1986 to December 31, 1996 was only Rs575,000. The petitioner's charges included construction of palatial buildings in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode and a shopping complex in Singapore costing Rs2 billion. Besides, vast plots of land at Nedumbassery and Goshree Development areas in Kochi were alleged to have been acquired by him.

The petitioner also said Karunakaran's son K. Muraleedharan bought shares in five-star hotels and a tea estate at a cost of Rs2 billion. A building was constructed at Guruvayur spending Rs50 million, besides buying a hotel in the name of Karunakaran's daughter Padmaja Venugopal.

Another charge was that a sum of Rs4.7 million was spent for the treatment of Karunakaran's late wife Kalyanikuttyamma in the United States and it was collected through illegal means. The investigating officers questioned 40 witnesses in connection with the charges.

Nawab said he would move the High Court against the verdict. Karunakaran, currently in New Delhi, hailed the verdict as "a victory of truth", and said the case had been suffocating him for quite some time.