Kannur, Oct 24 A court in Kerala’s Kannur adjourned, to October 29, hearing on CPI-M leader P.P. Divya’s pre-arrest bail plea in Kannur Additional District Magistrate Naveen Babu’s suicide case after a preliminary hearing.
Divya’s counsel argued that she had no malicious intentions when she spoke about Babu and was just making a general statement against corruption.
Meanwhile, the prosecution has strongly opposed her bail plea.
The counsel of Babu’s wife said that it has now become clear that the so-called complaint by Prasanthan to the Chief Minister was done after the suicide and moreover today they have not produced that complaint but came out with another complaint from a person named Gangadharan against Babu.
“There is no problem to arrest Divya. The entire episode of Divya was pre-planned,” said the counsel of Babu’s wife.
Babu, who has been widely appreciated for his clean official life and was to retire in seven months, felt deeply humiliated by her remarks and took an extreme step.
On October 13, Naveen Babu was found hanging in his home while his wife was waiting for him at the Chengannur railway station. He was recently transferred to his home district Pathanamthitta.
Locals said that Babu was deeply hurt when at his send-off function held on Monday, Divya, the Kannur district panchayath president made serious corruption charges against him. Divya had not been invited to the function and had barged in.
Divya said that a person had approached her to speak to Babu with regards to the sanctioning of a petrol pump station despite several requests, which he (Babu) had not been giving.
“Just two days before his retirement, Babu gave the sanction. I know how the sanction was given and I reveal all the details in two days,” she said.
Following the tragic incident, the person who applied for the petrol pump station was identified as T.P. Prasanth, who works as an electrician in the state-run Medical College at Kannur and was a colleague and friend of Divya’s husband.
Eyebrows were raised on how an electrician could afford to open a petrol pump station and more importantly, a person working in a government organisation cannot engage in a private business.
Trouble broke out when the probing media came out with a glaring omission on the part of Prasanth as it surfaced that in the lease rental agreement, the signatory is shown as Prasanth, while in the complaint letter to the Chief Minister which stated that Babu had taken a bribe of Rs 98,500 from him, it’s written as T.V. Prasanthan and the signatures in the two documents were also different.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan broke his silence and assured that no one will be protected and strong against the wrongdoers will be taken.
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