Judge SS Vasan of the Vigilance court at Thrissur, who had put in his papers following adverse observations by the Kerala High Court against his order to prosecute Excise Minister K Babu, has retracted his resignation.

K Babu, who had resigned immediately after Vasan’s January 23 order to prosecute him, returned to his ministerial job on Monday after retracting his resignation, on which Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had sat for a week.

Vasan on Monday decided to continue as the presiding judge of the Vigilance court, apparently following the intervention of senior High Court justices. The justices reportedly advised him not to take the criticism made by the High Court personally. The High Court had found procedural lapses in Vasan’s order and observed that he had gone beyond his brief.

He had on January 29 announced his decision to seek voluntary retirement, hours after a High Court judge stayed for two months his order to the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to file an FIR against K Babu in the bar bribery scam.

Babu had immediately sent his letter of resignation to Chandy, saying he was doing this ‘on moral grounds’.

In addition, Vasan had ordered prosecution of Chandy and Electricity Minister Aryadan Mohammed within 24 hours after Saritha S Nair, the accused in the ‘solar scam’, alleged before the Solar Scam Enquiry Commission that she had paid ₹1.90 crore in bribe to Chandy and ₹40 lakh to Mohammed. On a complaint by an activist, Vasan had ordered the VACB to file the FIR, thus unleashing a political storm and triggering cries for their resignations.

The order, based on Saritha’s allegations made to the media soon after her deposition to the commission, too was stayed by the High Court, which once again rapped Vasan for procedural lapses.

The High Court’s stay of Vasan’s order gave the ‘moral justification’ for K Babu, who had all along denied that he had received bribes from the bar owners, to return to power. On Monday, Babu told mediapersons that he was not keen to withdraw his resignation and really wanted to stay out of power.

The High Court’s stay on the order against Chandy and Mohammed – a day after it granted a stay on Babu’s case – gave ‘moral justification’ for both to continue in power.

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