Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday appeared before the Justice Sivarajan Commission probing the solar scam in Thiruvananthapuram and submitted an affidavit.
Chandy said in his affidavit that there is no loss for the government in solar dealings.
The CM said that he did not help the accused and it was just an allegation from the Opposition that it caused financial loss to the government.
He claimed that the meeting with co-accused Saritha S Nair in Vigyan Bhawan was on December 27, 2012 and not December 29, 2012 as he had mentioned earlier in the Assembly, which was a mistake. On December 27, 2012, there was another meeting of the development committee. The mistake in date occurred because of the wrong information given by a staff member in the department. Some of my personal staff was less vigilant on the issue and following the allegations, they were dismissed, he said.
He further said that he did not meet co-accused Sreedharan Nair and Saritha together.
This is the first time in Kerala’s history that a chief minister has appeared before a judicial enquiry commission.
The Rs 7 crore solar panel scam surfaced in 2013 and rocked the Oommen Chandy government as three of his staff members were found to have links with Saritha Nair. The three were subsequently sacked by Chandy.
There have been 33 cases lodged against Saritha Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan in the solar scam. Nair, along with Biju Radhakrishnan, have been accused of cheating many investors by promising to supply them solar panels worth millions of rupees. The scam has become a huge controversy after Saritha's links with many top politicians were exposed.