KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Thursday dismissed the plea to quash the FIR registered against Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan and seven others in connection with the allotment of 2.33 acres of government land to T K Soman, an ex-serviceman. “There may be so many aspects which can be raised by Soman justifying his application for the land. They can be raised before the appropriate forum at a later stage. Similarly, the prosecution may also have so many aspects in support of the case stated in the FIR. At this stage, it is not proper for the court to inquire into all the aspects to arrive at a conclusion,” the court observed. “The points raised by the petitioners Soman and A Suresh, personal assistant to Achuthanandan, challenging the FIR, could certainly be advanced by them at the appropriate stage. At this stage, it is not just to interfere with the investigation, the Single Bench of Justice N K Balakrishnan said while passing the order.The state government submitted that Achuthanandan had conspired and connived with the other accused to favour his kin in the allotment of government land. On the basis of the evidence collected so far, a strong case has been made out against all the accused, the state said. An FIR has been registered against eight persons, with charges ranging from criminal conspiracy, cheating and dishonesty inducing delivery of property and causing disappearance of evidence of offence, giving false information to screen offenders and several other provisions of the Prevention of Corruption of Act-1988. Appearing for the state, Director-General of Prosecutions T Asaf Ali said there was dishonest concealment of fact in regard to the total annual income of Soman. The annual income he was getting by way of pension was `80,000 and the annual income of his wife was `30,000. But in the application for the allotment of land, the annual income was shown as `25,000 only. So he was ineligible to get the land, the DGP said. However, the petitioners submitted that the police were acting at the behest of the political leaders and that the FIR was registered with undue haste. The FIR was prepared without conducting a proper preliminary inquiry. Since the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau was under the direct control of the ministry, it cannot be said that there would be unbiased and impartial investigation, the petitioners submitted. To which the court said that it would be too early for it to make any observation regarding the submission.
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