HC dismisses petition filed against CBI Director

Kochi, Nov 3 (UNI) The Kerala High Court today dismissed a contempt of court petition filed against CBI Director Vijay Shankar for not commencing investigations into the SNC Lavalin case.

A division bench, consisting of Chief Justice V K Bali and Justice P R Raman, dismissed the contempt of court petition filed by Mr T P Nandakumar, the Chief Editor of 'Crime' magazine.

Mr Nandakumar had sought initiation of contempt proceedings against Mr Vijay Shankar and CBI's Superintendent of Police T Vikram, for not commencing the investigation into the SNC Lavalin case, as directed by the High Court earlier.

Dismissing the petition, the division bench accepted the CBI contention that the earlier court direction was given to the state government to hand over the files regarding the case to the CBI.

There was no direction directly to the CBI to commence investigation, the bench observed.

The earlier direction was to the state government and hence the contempt charge would not stand against the CBI, the bench added.

In his writ petition filed earlier, Mr Nandakumar had sought a CBI probe into the award of contract for modernisation of the Pallivasal, Sengulam and Panniyar hydro-electric projects and extension work of the Kuttiyadi Irrigation Project, to the Canada-based company, SNC Lavalin.

He submitted that the the Accountant General of the state had found that the Kerala State Electricity Board had lost Rs 374.5 crore in the deal.

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