KOZHIKODE, May 2: The state government is preparing to shoot down the State Women's Commission's imminent recommendation for getting the CBI to probe the politically sensitive Kozhikode sex racket case.Top Government circles indicated that the Government might use either or both of the options it thinks it has, once the Commission puts up the recommendation, probably by Thursday.One perceived defence is procedural insufficiency, which it hopes would hold water. The Government might argue that the Commission ought to have first used its authority to summon and examine the police officials, petitioners and victims concerned with the racket and its probe, and put together a viable case with its recommendation for a CBI probe.The other option is that the Government could also pass on the burden of deciding the need for a CBI probe to the High Court, since the Court is hearing a petition from Anweshi women's organisation - which first exposed the racket - demanding it.The State Women's Commission hadbarely managed to hold on to its one-week old decision to ask for a CBI probe, two days ago. At one point, it was almost forced to meekly let its decision be subject to advice from the State Law Department. This was when one of its members unexpectedly demanded that the Commission should first seek legal advice.The decision, anyway, is still on thin ice. It has the strength of a majority of just four against three, in the seven-member Commission. The three dissenters belong to to the United Democratic Front. Interestingly, it was one of the Commission's Left Democratic Front members who abruptly insisted at its meeting two days ago that the issue be referred for Government legal advice. This was despite the fact that the Government itself has been fighting a petition for a CBI probe, in the High Court. This member, however, has changed tack for the moment.The state government's response to the Commission's recommendation, one way or the other, would assume much political significance. This wasparticularly considering the involvement of a highly influential former Kerala minister, whose name figures in many of the sex-racket related documents before the Commission. Not just with regard to the sex angle, but an alleged corrupt deal being swung using the racket as well.The local police in Kozhikode probing the racket had never named this politician among the accused or even hauled him up for questioning, as in the case of others. Instead, the cops had merely grilled his private secretary and some of his close cronies, while carefully steering clear of the man himself.What is more peculiar is even the way his name is made to figure in the police report filed before the court of the special judge here.
