HC unhappy with prolonging of vigilance probe against VS's son

Kerala High Court today expressed displeasure over prolonging the vigilance enquiry against CPI(M) veteran V S Achutanandan's son V A Arunkumar and directed that it be expedited.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice A M Shaffiq gave this direction when a PIL by one Abdul Haq, seeking a detailed probe by a special team into the complaint filed against Arunkumar by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy when he was the Opposition leader, came up for hearing today.
The court directed that the progress report in the case be filed within eight weeks.
The Vigilance had in September sought six months time from the High Court to complete the enquiry.

While Achutanandan was Chief Minister, Chandy, the then opposition leader had levelled 11 charges, including Arunkumar's foreign trips as Director of Institute of Human Resource development during the fag end of LDF rule.
There were also allegations of Rs 7 lakh bribe taken by Arunkumar from the sandalwood mafia in 2004 and his role in scuttling the CBI probe in the lottery scam.
According to Vigilance, almost all the charges are being probed. While CBI is looking into the lottery scam,the others, including that of getting Rs 7 lakh bribe and obtaining of bogus certificate by Arunkumar are under investigation.