Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said that the First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case against Life Mission, does not have legal standing and that was why the state government moved court against the probe.
"The legal opinion received by the state government points out that the FIR filed by the CBI against the Life Mission does not have legal standing and hence we decided to challenge it in the court," said Pinarayi Vijayan.
The CBI has taken a case over alleged Foreign Contribution (Regulations) Act (FCRA) violation in LDF government’s ‘Life Mission’ housing project for the poor.
Talking to the media in Thiruvananthapuram, CM asserted that the Life Mission ‘has not received any funding’ from abroad to flout the provisions of FCRA as alleged by a Congress MLA, based on which the CBI has filed a case.
However, the Life Mission project in Thrissur’s Wadakkanchery was sponsored by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) based non governmental organisation Red Crescent. Life Mission has signed an agreement with Red Crescent stating that the latter will sponsor Rs 20 crore for the construction of apartment complex for people who lost houses in the Kerala floods.
Meanwhile, Kerala CM slammed Congress saying that the Left government was not following the Congress-ruled Rajasthan government model, which had withdrawn general consent for the CBI to investigate in the state.
"The state government has moved the High Court with a clear conviction that there is no violation of any provisions of the FCRA. We will not stand as a mute spectator when a project like Life Mission, which was designed to provide home for landless and homeless poor of the state, is pushed into baseless legal entanglements. This cannot be accepted," the CM said.
Already, the Vigilance department in the state has begun investigation into the matter to ascertain whether any corruption was involved in it.
"It is ridiculous that those who make a conscious effort to create legal entanglements are raising objections when the government seeks a legal solution. The approach of the Opposition that they will raise any objection as they like and the government should sit tight without responding to it is not acceptable," Pinarayi Vijayan added.
Earlier on Thursday, the Kerala High Court had allowed the CBI to continue with its probe into the 'Life Mission' project for alleged FCRA violation.
The court said the CBI is doing the preliminary probe and asked Life Mission to cooperate with the investigation.
The Kerala government had on Wednesday moved court seeking quashing of an FIR filed by the CBI on a complaint by Congress MLA Anil Akkara, from Wadakkanchery.
It has also surfaced that Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the controversial gold smuggling case and a former employee of UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, had received Rs one crore as commission in the project.
Watch Kerala CM's statement on Life Mission: