KOCHI: The Vigilance has said in its remand report that in the Palarivattom corruption case, the accused who have been arrested had inflicted a heavy financial loss to the government.

It says that accused including T O Sooraj held criminal conspiracy in the case. They did undue favours to the contractor to help him gain big profit.

The Vigilance will be giving the application for the custody of the accused for questioning them further.

In the Vigilance report, Sumit Goel, the proprietor of RDX projects Ltd, the company that constructed the bridge, has been made the first accused. The accused from number two to four are Former Roads and Bridges Corporation AGM MT Thankachan, Kitco Joint General Manager Benny Paul and former Public Works secretary T O Sooraj, respectively.

All the accused were arrested on Friday.

Charged with offences such as corruption, cheating, criminal conspiracy and financial irregularity, the accused were produced in Moovattupuzha Vigilance court and remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody. They are currently lodged in Movattupuzha subjail.

Plea for Vigilance custody will be considered today and the bail application of the accused will be considered on Monday. Four accused including Sooraj were called in to Ernakulam Vigilance headquarters and arrested by Friday noon. When the FIR was registered, his name was not in the list of accused. Neither was his name in the list of suspects linked to the case.

On Friday, the Vigilance team questioned him for three hours under the pretext of recording his statement, without giving any hint of the arrest. Later they dramatically arrested him after calling him to the office in the name of further questioning.

Sooraj had retired from government service on May 31, 2018.