Kochi, Friday, January 01, 2010: The CBI special courts has completed hearing on Pinarayi Vijayan’s petition demanding an interrogation against Defence Minister AK Antony and include other officials as witness in the Lavalin case. The Court will pronounce the verdict on Monday. The hearing lasted for five hours.

CPM state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s counsel has claimed that, the conspiracy behind the multi crore SNC Lavalin scam was over ad AK Antony must be made a witness and the involvement of G Karthikeyan former power minister must be probed, and Karthikeyan was exempted from the probe because of political pressure and the MoU could not be signed without the knowledge of AK Antony.

However, the CBI has filed a counter affidavit to this. The CBI has said in its affidavit that Pinarayi Vijayan, who is an accused in the case, has no right to question what needs to be done to investigate the case or who all needs to be questioned by the court or how the investigations have to proceed.

CPM politbureau member Pinarayi Vijayan, seventh accused in the Rs 374-crore SNC Lavalin scandal, got a temporary reprieve with the special CBI court in Kochi granting him conditional bail on Wednesday.

The CPM leader has been accused of wrongfully awarding a contract to the Canadian company SNC Lavalin for renovating three power plants — Pallivassal, Chengulam, and Panniyar — in Kerala when he was the power minister in the E K Nayanar ministry.