THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The vigilance special court here has vehemently criticized the investigating officers for their failure to properly examine and bring out available evidences in the bar bribery case against former finance minister K M Mani."In a case of corruption, the investigating officer need not harp on conclusive evidence. He need not labour much on the admissibility of the evidence by placing reliance on precedence. There is an endeavour on the part of the investigating agency to evade from the crucial aspects without making an earnest effort," the verdict by special judge D Ajith Kumar said.The judgement added that that there was also an attempt on the part of the present investigating officer to erase the finding in the factual report. "On perusal of the supplementary report, the over-enthusiasm of the investigating agency to somehow close the matter on the grounds of absence of evidence for demand of bribe is evident," the judgement pointed out.The court further said that in corruption cases, such a task had to be carried out by the court on evaluating the circumstantial evidence. But here, the investigating officer did not exert any effort to help the court by collecting circumstantial evidence despite the specific directions issued by the court, the court observed. Earlier during the hearing, the court had made similar observations, and had said that the vigilance report seeking closure of the case was like a court pronouncing its verdict.The court has asked the agency to approach the government seeking permission to continue the investigation, as the prevention of corruption act was amended recently and now requires the permission from appropriate authorities while probing graft cases.The case pertains to an allegations that K M Mani accepted Rs One crore from office bearers of Kerala Bar Hotel Association during the period from March 20 to April 3, 2014, for renewing the licenses of bar hotels.The VACB had said that there is no scientific evidence to prove the allegations against Mani that he had accepted Rs One crore as bribe from hoteliers for renewing their bar licenses, when he was the finance minister in 2013-14. However, the court accepted the arguments by Biju Ramesh and Vijayaraghavan, that the scientific evidences available were not properly analysed by the agency.This is the third time that the agency is taking a stand that the case has to be closed for the lack of evidence.

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