Supreme Court pauses CMRL investigation for seven days

The Supreme Court on October 21 halted the vigilance investigation into allegations involving former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family for seven days, while leaving the FIR in place and allowing them to pursue appeals before the Kerala High Court’s division bench. The interim order by a bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana followed the High Court’s October 15 rejection of applications by Vijayan, his daughter Veena T. and her husband, P. A. Mohammed Riyas, to appeal an earlier order. The Supreme Court set aside that rejection and gave the petitioners an opportunity to approach the division bench and seek interim relief. The case stems from an October 9 direction by a single judge of the Kerala High Court for the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) to register a case based on material sent by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to state police. The VACB subsequently registered two FIRs concerning the allegations. The petitioners argued that they had not been heard before the single judge ordered the case registered. They also contended that the original proceedings were in the nature of a public-interest litigation and should have been heard...