Vigilance probe against CPI-M leaders

Vigilance Court here today ordered a probe against former Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and two others for allegedly causing loss to the exchequer by spending huge sums of money to argue cases in High Court by hiring lawyers from outside the state.
The court passed the order in a private petition filed by one Raju, who contended that previous LDF government engaged lawyers from outside Kerala even though competent lawyers were available in the state and Rs three crore were paid as fee to them and it was charged to the government account.

The court directed the probe team to submit its preliminary report by October 22.
The lawyers were hired to argue corruption case in which Vijayan was an accused and the Kozhikode ice cream parlour sex scandal case, which was pursued by Achuthanandan.
The ice cream parlour case was that it was being run as a brothel and a number of girls were being sexually exploited there by politicians and other VIPs.
The cases came up for hearing at the Kerala High Court during Achuthanandan's tenure as Chief Minister from 2006 to 2011, it was stated.