In a high-voltage courtroom moment that fizzled into anticlimax, the Kerala High Court on Friday tossed out two petitions seeking a deeper probe into explosive allegations of bribery and abuse of power against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his daughter, Veena Thaikkandiyil.
The legal challenge—rooted in a storm of claims involving shady business deals, phantom services, and alleged mining irregularities—was spearheaded by Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan and another petitioner, Gireesh Babu. Both had gone knocking on the High Court’s door after a vigilance court previously shut down their requests for investigation.
Justice K Babu, delivering the order, upheld the lower court’s dismissal. However, he did sweep aside one pointed barb from that court—the suggestion that Kuzhalnadan’s complaint was politically motivated. “Unwarranted,” the judge declared, striking that observation from the record.
At the core of the controversy: Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL), a company accused of funneling bogus payments—₹1.72 crore, to be precise—to Exalogic and Thaikkandiyil under the guise of IT and marketing services that, according to the petitioners, were never actually rendered. Kuzhalnadan claimed the money trail led straight to the Chief Minister himself.
But the allegations didn’t stop at shady transactions. Kuzhalnadan alleged that CMRL was involved in illegal mining, aided by political protection from the top. In a particularly dramatic assertion, he claimed that the 2018 Kerala floods—widely seen as a natural disaster—were in fact manipulated to facilitate mass sand removal for mineral extraction.
Babu’s petition widened the net, accusing not just the CM but also other high-profile political figures across party lines—including Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and former ministers Kunjali Kutty, VK Ibrahim Kunju, and A Govindan—of accepting bribes from CMRL.
Both complaints had been summarily dismissed by the vigilance court—Babu’s in August 2023, Kuzhalnadan’s in January 2024—prompting the appeals. The petitioners argued that the vigilance court had jumped the gun by rejecting their complaints at the outset without due examination, violating procedures under the Criminal Procedure Code.
Kuzhalnadan sought to have his complaint revived and re-examined. Babu went further—asking the High Court to order a full-fledged investigation by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau.
In the end, though, the High Court saw no grounds to overturn the vigilance court’s stance. With that, the curtain fell—for now—on one of Kerala’s more combustible political-legal sagas.
No green light for a probe. No vindication for the accusations. Just a quiet gavel drop in a case that had threatened to shake the state’s political foundations.
