Kerala High Court suspends ex-DGP Tomin Thachankary's four-year jail sentence in DA case

The Kerala High Court on Thursday suspended the 4-year-jail sentence of former Director General of Police (DGP) Tomin Thachankary in a disproportionate assets case [Tomin J Thachakary v. State of Kerala].

Justice A Badharudeen pronounced the order on an application filed by Thachankary seeking suspension of his jail sentence until the High Court decides his appeal challenging the conviction.

Detailed order awaited.

The Court had reserved its decision on September 24 after hearing Thachankary's plea and the objections raised by the state government.

The case against Thachankary arose from a complaint filed by Bobby Kuruvila, who alleged that Thachankary during his service period had acquired houses, flats and other properties which were disproportionate to the income he earned.

A subsequent probe by the vigilance revealed that Thachankary had acquired assets worth over ₹64 lakh between 2003 and 2007.

A disproportionate income amounting to around ₹30 lakh was found which was over 50% of his known income during that time.

On September 17, the Kottayam Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance) KV Rajaneesh convicted Thachankary and sentenced him to four years imprisonment.

The judge also imposed a fine of ₹30.84 lakh.

Thachankary subsequently moved the present appeal before the Kerala High Court. He simultaneously filed an application to suspend his sentence during the pendency of the appeal.

In his appeal, Thachankary contended that the trial court's verdict is illegal and perverse. He submitted that the trial court took cognisance of the case on the basis of a sanction order of the government which was issued solely on the basis of a supplementary investigation report.

According to Thachankary, there was an earlier sanction order which was withdrawn on the request of the investigating agency. Thachankary claimed that this withdrawn sanction order indicated that the amount of disproportionate assets was around ₹20 lakhs, whereas the amount in the new sanction order was ₹64 lakhs.

Thachankary also questioned the methods adopted by the trial court to calculate his income from various sources. He further argued that the trial court had not considered his wife's income.

Thachankary was represented before the High Court by Senior Advocate B Raman Pillai and advocates S Rajeev, MS Aneer, Sarath KP, Anilkumar CR, KS Kiran Krishnan, Dipa V, Akash Cherian Thomas, TP Araving, Azad Sunil, Akshara S, Nivedita Rajeev and Ebee Antony.

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