Setback for Kerala BJP President as HC stays discharge order in bribery case
Kochi: Days after a trial court gave relief to state BJP President K. Surendran in an election bribery case, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday stayed the order discharging him.
The case against Surendran was that he had threatened and bribed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate K. Sundara to withdraw from the contest in the Manjeswaram constituency, which Surendran contested and lost by a whisker, in the 2021 Assembly elections.
The state government had filed the appeal against the court order that discharged Surendran and the Kerala High Court stayed it and asked a notice to be served to Surendran.
The original case was based on a petition filed by CPI-M leader V.V. Rameshan, the LDF candidate from the Manjeswaram constituency. The petitioner demanded the arrest of BJP leaders who allegedly paid money, gave mobile phones and promised other favours to Sundara to withdraw his nomination from Manjeswaram during the elections.
Sundara later alleged that he was given money and a mobile phone to withdraw his candidature in favour of Surendran.
But the trial court, on October 5, let off Surendran and five local BJP leaders who were earlier included as accused, after it accepted the discharge petition filed by them as they claimed they had done no wrong.
Surendran, after his discharge, had alleged that the case was a fabricated one in which the CPI-M, the Congress, the Indian Union Muslim League, and a section of the media conspired against him. It was the Crime Branch wing of the Kerala Police that probed this case and submitted its charge sheet.
The probe police team, which has submitted its preliminary report, included charges against the accused under the SC/ST Act, besides others which included bribery to sabotage elections. Incidentally in the original petition filed by Ramesan, Surendran was alleged to have committed offences punishable under Sections 171(E) (bribery), 171(B) (election bribery), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506(i) (criminal intimidation) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).