Disproportionate assets case: HC suspends sentence, Tomin Thachankary to walk out of jail

KOCHI: A sigh of relief for former DGP Tomin Thachankary in the disproportionate assets case. The high court suspended the four-year jail term delivered by the Kottayam Vigilance Court. This favorable order was passed on Thachankary’s plea requesting to suspend the sentence and grant bail until the appeal is disposed of. Thachankary's main demand was that his sentence should be suspended. Before that, he had informed the court that his plea to suspend the sentence should be considered. With this, he will be able to step out of the Poojappura Central Jail.

The bench headed by Justice A Badharudeen considered the appeal. The Kottayam Vigilance Court had sentenced Tomin Thachankary to four years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs 30.84 lakh in a disproportionate assets case, alleging that he had amassed wealth beyond his known sources of income through corruption while holding an official post from 2003 to 2007. The Kottayam Vigilance Court pronounced the sentence against Tomin Thachankary on September 17 this year.

Meantime, Thachankary argued that the investigating officers had made serious errors while calculating his income and had falsely implicated him in the case.

He alleged that the assets he possessed had been inherited from his family and that he had not engaged in any form of corruption. He also alleged that the investigation team had failed to take several sources of income into account. Although the government had ordered a reinvestigation, the high court had quashed that order.

Thachankary filed the appeal through advocate S Rajeev, arguing that a judgment based on such an investigation report could not legally stand. The appeal also stated that the sentence imposed on him was excessive under any circumstances.