New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear the Lavalin case, in which Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is an accused, on September 13. A bench, headed by Justice U U Lalit, also passed a strict instruction that the case should not be adjourned from the list of petitions being considered on the day. The intervention came after the lawyer pointed out that the case was constantly being moved.
According to the lawyer, a notice was sent in January 2018 on a petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the verdict that acquitted Pinarayi Vijayan and others in the Lavalin case. However, there was no significant follow-up and the case was adjourned several times. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty as to whether the bench headed by Lalit will hear the case on September 13. With Lalit being nominated as the next Chief Justice of India, there will be many important cases presented before him. It is in this context that ambiguity arose.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is the seventh accused in the case. The first accused is former energy secretary K Mohanachandran. The case relates to the alleged corruption in a contract awarded by the Kerala government to Canadian company SNC Lavalin in 1995 for the renovation and modernisation of three hydroelectric projects in Idukki. A CBI special court had cleared Pinarayi Vijayan and other accused. The agency appealed against the order in the Kerala High Court, which acquitted them in August 2017. The CBI then went to appeal at the Supreme Court.
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