Kochi, June 15, 2026
The Kerala High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by Industries Department Principal Secretary (Cashew) Mohammed Hanish challenging a direction to personally appear before the court in a contempt of court case linked to alleged corruption in the Kerala State Cashew Development Corporation Limited (KSCDC).
A Division Bench comprising Justices K Natarajan and Johnson John upheld the order of Justice A Badharudeen, who had directed Hanish to appear before the court and face contempt proceedings over the repeated refusal of the government to grant prosecution sanction against accused KSCDC officials.
The Bench observed that the contempt case arose after the State government repeatedly denied the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) ‘s request for sanction to prosecute former KSCDC officials, despite earlier directions of the High Court.
The court noted that a single judge had already found prima facie material against the officials accused in the corruption case.
Since the CBI could not proceed with prosecution without sanction from the competent authority, the repeated refusal by the government had effectively blocked further action, the Bench observed.
The Division Bench came down heavily on Hanish’s stand that the prosecution sanction was denied due to a lack of evidence. It questioned how an authority could conclude that there was no evidence by overlooking findings already recorded by the court.
The Bench said a competent authority could not repeatedly reject a sanction by virtually overriding judicial findings. It held that there was no error in the Single Bench directing Hanish to appear before it.
The court, however, observed that if he had not committed any contempt, he had the liberty to seek discharge from the proceedings.
The case originated from a petition filed by Kadakampally Manoj alleging large-scale corruption and misuse of funds in the procurement of raw cashew by KSCDC. Acting on the plea, the High Court ordered a CBI probe in 2015.
Following the investigation, the CBI sought sanction to prosecute former KSCDC chairman R Chandrasekharan and former managing director K A Ratheesh, among others.
The State government initially refused sanction, following which the High Court ordered reconsideration. However, the sanction was denied again. Manoj then initiated contempt proceedings.
The Single Bench quashed the rejection order and directed the government to reconsider the matter. Despite this, a sanction was refused for the third time.
Taking note of the repeated defiance of its directions, the Single Bench in April ordered Hanish, as the Principal Secretary, to appear before the court in the contempt proceedings. The Division Bench has now cleared the way for those proceedings to continue.(Agency)
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