A bench of justice HL Dattu and justiceAR Dave, granted liberty to petitioner Nandakumar to file a review petition in the Kerala High Court, which it said should examine it in accordance with law.
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition challenging a CBI probe ordered by the Kerala government against former chief minister VS Achuthanandan and three others in connection with the award of a tender for IT services management in the state to Reliance Communications.
A bench of justice HL Dattu and justiceAR Dave, however, granted liberty to petitioner Thanickkal Gopinathan Nandakumar to file a review petition in the Kerala High Court, which it said should examine it in accordance with law.
On February 23, the high court recorded a statement of Advocate General on the state government's decision to order a CBI probe into alleged role of Achuthanandan, along with Nandakumar, who facilitated the award of tender and others for the contract relating to management, operations, maintenance and upgrade of the State Data Centre and three Network Operating Centres to Reliance Communications Ltd.
Senior counsel counsel Narasimha submitted that the high court had passed an ex parte order and had merely recorded the statement of the State Advocate General that a decision had been taken to entrust the matter to the CBI.
He said the high court had recorded the AG's statement and disposed of the writ petition filed by the Chief Whip in the assembly PC George, stating that nothing remained for consideration.
Citing a Constitution Bench decision, he said there must be prima facie materials for the court to come to the conclusion to order a CBI probe, but here there were no materials before the court.
However, the apex court said that if the state government had taken the decision to order a CBI probe before filing of the writ petition, then you have no case.
The bench said if the state government felt that there was a need for a CBI probe and the high court concurred with the view, there was no reason why the petitioners and others should be given a prior notice on the issue.
In his petition, Nandakumar had claimed George had filed the petition for political ends to tarnish the image of the leader of Opposition Achuthanandan on the eve of a bye-election at Piravam.
He submitted that no prior notices were issued to them vis-a-vis the CBI probe.
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