The Kerala High Court, on Friday, dismissed a plea by Leader in the Opposition in the Kerala Assembly VD Satheesan for a CBI probe into alleged corruption in the implementation of the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K FON) project.

A Division Bench comprising Justice AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Syamkumar VM dismissed the petition stating that it saw no reason to interfere with the project or entrust any investigation to the CBI at this point. “There is no reason to interfere with the decision taken by the state government or to interdict the government from implementing the project,” the Bench said.

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“We also do not see it necessary to entrust the investigation into the allegations made by the petitioner to the CBI at this stage,” the Bench added.

The report of the CAG, when made available, can be scrutinised by the legislature, and appropriate. Action can be taken if necessary, the court said in its order.

V D Satheesan, in his petition, said the K FON project and all contracts arising from it were divided among proxies of the people controlling the government. All the tenders for the project had been awarded to a single beneficiary company which was closely connected with persons in power.

The company had allegedly re-routed the work and financial benefits involved to another company that is associated with the same person in power. The project touted as a breakthrough project to provide internet access to economically backward and streamline government works online had been reduced to a scheme for fitting projects to SRIT Pvt Ltd, Presadia,and its subcontractors, Satheesan further said in his petition

There was a complete violation of administrative action and fraud was committed on the public. The corruption involved in the award of the contract was akin to the corruption in the implementation of the government’s safe Kerala project of the installation of AI (artificial intelligence) traffic cameras, the petition further says K-FON Project was the state government’s infrastructural project to provide universal basic internet facilities to all citizens