10/12/2010 (The Telegraph), New Delhi - The Kerala government today requested the Supreme Court to vacate its three-year-old stay on the trial of a palm oil import case, dealing a blow to central vigilance commissioner P.J. Thomas who figures in the case chargesheet.

Kerala’s move comes at a time the apex court has questioned Thomas’s appointment as CVC, asking how a graft accused could function as head of the country’s corruption watchdog.

“Let us proceed on assumption that at every stage, there will be allegations that you should not process a file as central vigilance commissioner as you are accused in a criminal case,” the court had said last month.

Kerala’s Left Democratic Front government had earlier expressed unhappiness at Thomas’s appointment as CVC. Today, it urged the top court to lift the stay so that charges could be framed.

If no offence is made out, the accused can be discharged, the state said. Otherwise, the trial should go on.

The case relates to alleged irregularities in palm oil import by the Kerala government in 1992, when K. Karunakaran was chief minister and Thomas the state’s food secretary. The deal is said to have cost the exchequer over Rs 2 crore.

Karunakaran is the first accused in the case, whose trial was stayed on August 3, 2007.

The case has had a chequered political history. Karunakaran has called it politically motivated. Former Congress chief minister Oomen Chandy had decided to withdraw the case, but when the Left Democratic Front came to power, it reversed the decision.