Thiruvananthapuram: The police intend to take the statements of three Kerala High Court judges and the High Court Vigilance Registrar as part of the probe into a serious graft allegation against an advocate. A letter seeking permission of the Chief Justice will be sent soon.

The Director General of Police has directed Superintendent of Police, Alappuzha, K S Sudarshan who leads the investigation team, to give a letter to the Chief Justice in this regard.

If permission is granted, the statement will be taken after meeting the judges personally at the time allotted by them.

As the names of the judges have been unnecessarily dragged into the issue it’s expected that the High Court will grant permission for further proceedings in the case.

The case

As per the case High Court Advocates Association president Saiby Jose Kidangoor received Rs 77 lakh by wrongly impressing his clients that he needs to pay the same to High Court judges Justice P V Kunhikrishnan, Justice A Muhammed Mushtaq and Justice A A Siyad Rahman as bribes. The preliminary investigation in this regard was conducted by the High Court Vigilance Registrar as per the direction of the Chief Justice.

Solid proof
The High Court Vigilance Registrar had reported that there was preliminary evidence to believe that Saiby Jose had received the money in the name of giving bribes to judges. The report contained statements by advocates against Saiby.

The Kochi City Police Commissioner has reported that five advocates had given statements against Saiby. The Commissioner had also taken the statement of Saiby’s client, who is a film producer accused in a sexual abuse case. The latter's wife had also given her statement.

Police will seek legal opinion as to who can be made witnesses in the case.

ED too will probe
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will undertake an investigation into the statement of advocates that Rs 10 lakh was directly handed over by the client on Saiby's direction to pay the judges.

Police received a statement that this was handed over in a Kochi hotel. As a sum of above Rs 2 lakh was directly handed over, the probe comes under the ambit of the ED.