Special Court allows Chennaithala's plea to summon files on breweries licences

A Special Court in Kerala on Thursday allowed senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala's plea for directions to the Principal Secretary (tax) to produce files relating to the issuance of licences by the State government in 2018 for breweries in Kannur, Palakkad and Ernakulam districts and a distillery in Thrissur.

The licences were subsequently cancelled by the government that year itself.

A statement issued by Chennithala's office as well as his advocate Vakkom G Saseendran confirmed the order of the Special Court in Thiruvananthapuram.

Saseendran said the court rejected the Vigilance Department's objections to the plea of the Congress leader.

The department had contended that as a similar plea had been rejected by the Kerala High Court the case had no legal validity.

The Vigilance had also argued that the files cannot be shown to the witnesses in the case at the time of recording of their statements in the court, the statement issued by Chennithala's office said.

Chennithala had sought production of the files to substantiate the allegations of corruption levelled by him against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, former Excise Minister T P Ramakrishna, then Excise Commissioner Rishiraj Singh and the Deputy Commissioners of the districts where the brewery and distillery were granted permission.

The senior Congress leader has sought filing of graft cases against all of them under the Prevention of Corruption Act.