CBI books Chandy, Venugopal for sexual abuse of solar case accused

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 17 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday registered cases against two time former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy, AICC general secretary K.C. Venugopal and Congress Lok Sabha members -- Hibi Eden, Adoor Prakash, Congress legislator A.P. Anilkumar and BJP national vice president A.P. Abdulla Kutty. Cases were registered on a complaint filed by Solar scam accused Saritha Nair, that she was sexually exploited by these leaders.

Incidentally, Nair had raised a complaint to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who handed it over to the CBI.

She raised her complaint after she expressed her displeasure in the Kerala Police probe which after several years failed to come to any conclusion.

And Vijayan, on expected lines to make political capital quickly, forwarded the petition to the CBI, which agreed to take up the probe.

Following this, the CBI has now filed three cases at the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court, here and one case at the CJM Kochi court.

According to her complaint, she was sexually harassed by Chandy (when he was the Chief Minister) at his official residence on August 19, 2012.

However, the Kerala Police probe had earlier found out that there was nothing to prove that.

Reacting to the new development, Chandy said as always he has been maintaining one stand and that he will fight the case legally.

"Even when the Kerala Police registered the cases, which were under non-bailable sections, we decided to fight it legally and did not even take anticipatory bail," said Chandy.

Lok Sabha MP Hibi Eden said, who does not know that this is nothing but politically motivated case.

Incidentally, Nair can take the credit for bringing down the 2011-16 Oommen Chandy government on account of the scams involving her and a few members of the Chandy's office, which the Left used widely in their election campaign in 2016.

She and her then live-in partner went around selling solar schemes and collected money from several people and cheated them and in between her links with a few office staff of Chandy surfaced, which became the biggest campaign issue of the Left.

A few months back she was jailed in another cheating case registered against her.