Kerala HC rejects Opposition Leader Satheesan’s plea for CBI probe into KFON project, Kerala High Court, Kfon, Opposition Leader, vd Satheesan, plea dismissed, CBI probe

A bench comprising Justices AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Syam Kumar VM said that the materials before the court did not persuade them to draw a prima facie conclusion regarding any illegality or irregularity in the implementation of the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) project.

“On the contrary: after examining the statement of the Advocate General on behalf of the defendant (State Government), it appears at first glance that the KFON project appears to be well on its way to achieving its stated objectives …

“This is all the more true as we have been informed that so far 20,336 government offices have been provided with connectivity through the fibre optic network already laid as part of the project and 5,484 economically disadvantaged families have been provided with free internet access to date,” the court said.

There is therefore no reason to interfere with the decisions of the government and its ministries regarding the project or to prevent them from implementing the project, the court said.

“We also do not consider it necessary to entrust the CBI with an investigation into the allegations made by the complainant (Satheesan) at this stage,” it added.

The court also described the allegations made in the plea regarding the manner in which the KFON project was implemented as “premature”.

It was further stated that the challenge to the project contract awarded to the BEL consortium was made “hopelessly late”.

In his plea, Satheesan had sought quashing of the project contract and a CBI inquiry into the reasons for awarding the contract to the consortium. The inquiry was based on certain observations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which raised doubts about the legality and propriety of awarding the contract to the BEL consortium.

The questions raised by the CAG in 2023 formed the basis for the allegations and grounds in the writ petition.

Based on the CAG’s observations, Satheesan had claimed that the contract was awarded to the consortium at a cost of Rs 1,628.35 crore, which was more than 50 per cent of the amount of Rs 1,028 crore sanctioned by the state government in 2017.

The court rejected his objections on the ground that “the views of the CAG with regard to any loss incurred to the State exchequer remain merely a view and cannot be accepted as decisive.”

“In the present case, there is no report of the CAG yet. … The report of the CAG, once available, can certainly be examined by the legislature or the Public Accounts Committee and appropriate action can be taken on the basis of their comments thereon.”

“At this stage of the proceedings, we find that no grounds have been made out to justify interference by this Court in the KFON project under its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The writ petition fails and is accordingly dismissed,” the court said.

KFON is Kerala’s own internet service through which the government aims to strengthen the state’s digital infrastructure. Kerala is the first state to declare the internet a fundamental right of its citizens.

The project is being implemented by a consortium of public sector companies, including Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Railtel, and some private companies.

The contract was awarded to them in 2019.

The objectives of the project are to establish a nationwide fiber optic network connecting over 30,000 government facilities, provide free internet to 2 million economically disadvantaged families and provide subsidized internet to others by using KFON infrastructure. | PTI