Now Reading: Kerala High Court rejects Vijayan family appeal in CMRL bribery case
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Kerala High Court rejects Vijayan family appeal in CMRL bribery case
The Kerala High Court on Thursday, 15 October dismissed applications filed by former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter Veena T and her husband P A Mohamed Riyas for permission to appeal against a single judge's 9 October order directing the registration of an FIR against them in the alleged Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) bribery case. A Division Bench of Justices K Natarajan and Johnson John ruled that the single judge's order had not affected their right to pursue constitutional or statutory remedies against the FIR registration, and dismissed all leave-to-appeal petitions.
The applicants had argued they were not heard before the 9 October direction and that a single judge should not have passed it in a petition styled as public interest litigation. The detailed judgment is awaited. On 12 October, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau registered two FIRs against Vijayan and his family members based on the single judge's order. The Enforcement Directorate has alleged that CMRL made fraudulent payments of Rs 2.78 crore to Veena's defunct company, Exalogic Solutions, under the guise of IT consultancy.
Indian Opinion Analysis
All three outlets lead with the same fact, the dismissal of the leave-to-appeal applications, and give near-identical accounts of the court's reasoning and the procedural background, reflecting that they are reporting from the same hearing and order. India Today alone adds the alleged payment figure of Rs 2.78 crore and details of the Enforcement Directorate's case, which are absent from the other two reports. Deccan Herald and LiveLaw focus strictly on the court procedure and the rejected pleas. The shared core across all three is that the bench preserved the applicants' right to pursue remedies against the FIR itself, and the next step rests with the detailed judgment, which remains awaited.
Coverage: 3 sources, 3 neutral
Sources (3): deccanherald.com (neutral report), indiatoday.in (neutral report), livelaw.in (neutral report)
This brief was synthesised by AI from the 3 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Methodology and corrections.
