I was made a scapegoat to target Oommen Chandy, says former aide

Thiruvananthapuram, July 15 (IANS) Former Oommen Chandy aide Tenny Joppen on Wednesday said he had been made a scapegoat in the politically-sensitive solar scam to target the late Chief Minister, hours after the Kerala High Court permitted his removal from the list of accused in one of the cases linked to the controversy.

The High Court allowed Joppen to be deleted from the array of accused in the case filed by businessman Mallely Sreedharan Nair, after the complainant informed the court that he was no longer interested in pursuing the case against him and that the dispute had been settled outside court.

The trial had not commenced.

Reacting to the verdict, Joppen said the outcome vindicated his long held stand that he had been unnecessarily implicated.

“I was made a scapegoat to target Oommen Chandy. I have nothing against those who worked against me. Let them be happy. I will not name anyone, because all of you in the media know who they are,” he said.

Joppen also recalled what he described as his ordeal during the investigation.

He alleged that he was needlessly slapped by the then senior police officer A. Hemachandran when he had appeared for questioning despite no case having been registered against him at that stage.

Hemachandran, who later retired in the rank of Director General of Police, is currently serving as Special Advisor to Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala.

Joppen, who served as Personal Assistant to the late Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, was the third accused in the case.

He had been arraigned on the basis of Sreedharan Nair’s statement alleging that he had pressured the complainant to hand over money to prime accused Saritha S. Nair.

His arrest had assumed political significance as he was the only person associated with Oommen Chandy’s office to be arrested in connection with the solar scam.

More significantly he was arrested the same day Chandy was given a UN award in Bahrain.

The Kerala solar scam, which surfaced in 2013, centred on allegations that Saritha S. Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan cheated investors by promising lucrative solar energy projects while allegedly leveraging fake political connections.

The scandal snowballed into one of Kerala’s biggest political controversies, with allegations levelled against several senior political leaders, including then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.

The CBI, in 2022, closed the sexual assault allegations linked to the controversy, giving Oommen Chandy and the other accused a clean chit.

The High Court’s order marks another significant development in the long running solar scam litigation, one of Kerala’s most politically contentious episodes, which the CPI-M led Left used extensively in their election campaigns in 2016 and 2021.

–IANS

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