SC to consider Lavalin case on Monday when PM Modi lands in Kerala

After a five-month gap, the infamous SNC-Lavalin scandal involving Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will be taken up by the Supreme Court on Monday.

A division bench comprising Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar will consider the case on the same day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin his Kerala visit.

PM Modi will inaugurate a youth conference in Kochi that is most likely to be attended by Anil Antony, son of veteran Congress leader AK Antony. Anil had recently joined the BJP.

The Lavalin case has been adjourned at least 30 times before. The last time the apex court heard the case was in November 2022 when UU Lalit was the Chief Justice.

The CBI had moved the Supreme Court on August 23, 2017, after the High Court of Kerala acquitted Pinarayi and two others -- K Mohanachandran, former power secretary and A Francis, former joint secretary in the power department from the corruption case.

Pinarayi was accused of awarding a contract to Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin when he was the power minister in 1996 and causing a loss to the state exchequer. A special court in Thiruvananthapuram had earlier discharged him in the case.

It is unclear if there will be a hearing in the case on Monday as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who appears for the CBI is likely to be preoccupied. Mehta will be appearing for the Centre when the constitutional bench takes up pleas on the same-sex marriages row.

The other day, KPCC chief K Sudhakaran had raised the Lavalin issue saying the repeated adjournments in the case were proof of a CPM-BJP nexus.