Pillai, former Kerala power minister, and two others were awarded one-year rigorous imprisonment in the case on February 10, this year by the apex court. Pillai was granted remission along with about 2,500 prisoners before completing his one-year jail term.
Achuthanandan's petition was mentioned before a bench comprising justices P Sathasivam and Jasti Chelameswar which said it would be heard by the same bench which had awarded the jail term to Pillai. It was the bench of justices Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, which had convicted and awarded the sentence to Pillai by reversing the acquittal order passed by the Kerala high court.
Achuthanandan, in his petition, submitted that Pillai has not completed the jail term and after spending only 93 days, he came out on parole and was in hospital. Further, the former chief minister alleged that the Congress leader had violated the jail rules and was using the mobile phone and, accordingly, he was not entitled to the remission, which the Kerala government granted him on October 31 in connection with the State Reorganisation Day.
"The government decision to allow Mr Pillai to serve the rest of the sentence in hospital violated the court judgment," the petition said.
Even this sentence became a formality due to the unlawful interference of the state government and the "unholy relationship" he was maintaining with cabinet ministers (his son is one of the ministers) and top bureaucrats, the petition said.
A law student Mahesh Mohan has also filed a contempt petition against the Kerala government accusing it of hatching a conspiracy to "willfully violating" the court decision by releasing Pillai.
The apex court on February 10 had allowed the prosecution plea that Pillai, who formed the Kerala Congress (B), had entered into a criminal conspiracy that caused a loss of over Rs 2 crore to the Kerala State Electricity Board by awarding contracts for construction of a power tunnel and surge shaft of the Idamalayar hydro-electricity power project to contractor Paulose (now deceased) at extra-ordinarily high rates.
Achuthanandan, while being the chief minister, had filed the appeal by contending that the high court had committed a grave error by overlooking the clinching evidence marshalled by the prosecution and the conviction rightly awarded by the special court in Kerala.
The apex court had also expressed concern that cases of corruption relating to political personalities have been dragging endlessly in the country and pointed that in the present case, though the scandal took place in 1982, the prosecution was launched only in 1991.
The bench had said there was clinching evidence to prove Pillai's involvement in the award of the contract despite the fact that the electricity board was an independent body and was not under the control of the government to warrant his interference.
