Thiruvananthapuram | Keralam Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday said that lapse of time does not make a crime go away, while referring to the vigilance probe initiated in connection with allegations of corruption in a road project undertaken two decades ago when CEC Gyanesh Kumar was the PWD secretary.
Chennithala, responding to a submission in the House by Congress MLA A K M Ashraf regarding the probe, said that there were several allegations in connection with the project which were initially investigated by the vigilance from 2006 to 2012 and then closed down, saying no case was made out.
The allegations included approval of agreements with the contracted company for amounts greater than what was estimated -- leading to a loss of around Rs 700 crore to the government and spending almost double the amount calculated for land acquisition and rehabilitation, the minister said.
Besides that, the other allegations included giving mobilisation funds to the companies carrying out the work even before entering into an agreement with them, demanding around Rs 2 crore for clearing bills and approving bills of the contracted company without examining them, he said.
As the vigilance could not prove these allegations back then, they gave a report to close down the probe.
"However, the lapse of time, of around 20 years, does not make a crime or corruption go away. Be it 20 years or 30 years, crime never dies. I got a complaint regarding these allegations, and I forwarded it to the vigilance department, which is investigating the same," Chennithala said.
He further said that Gyanesh Kumar is a person who has created apprehensions in the minds of the citizens, as crores of voters were deleted from the electoral rolls and there are widespread protests across India against him.
The minister said that a fair and unbiased probe will be carried out and taken to its logical conclusion.
The minister was referring to the probe into alleged corruption in the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP), undertaken in 2006 when Kumar was serving as Public Works Department secretary.
In 2006, the KSTP undertook a World Bank-funded project worth Rs 215 crore to reconstruct the MC Road from Angamaly to Thiruvananthapuram. PATI-BEL, a joint venture between a Malaysian firm and Bhageeratha Engineering, was awarded the project.
A Malaysian company carried out the work. Its project engineer, Lee See Been, allegedly raised several complaints during construction before returning to Malaysia, where he died by suicide.
