Kerala High Court stays prison sentence for former DGP Tomin Thachankary in disproportionate assets case

The Kerala High Court has stayed the prison sentence handed down to former DGP Tomin J. Thachankary in a disproportionate assets case and granted him bail. Justice A. Badaruddin issued the order after hearing an appeal filed by Thachankary against a Kottayan Vigilance Court ruling. Thachankary had been behind bars since September 17, spending 28 days in custody before this release order. The Kottayam Vigilance Court had earlier sentenced him to four years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of 30.84 lakh rupees. The original case alleged that Thachankary amassed assets worth 64 lakh rupees beyond his known sources of income between January 1, 2003, and July 2007 while serving as a DIG. Challenging this conviction, Thachankary argued that investigating officers made major errors in calculating his income and that several valid sources of revenue were ignored by the trial court. In his appeal, Thachankary contended that the trial court wrongly dismissed the sale of 55 cents of land in Changanassery for 50 lakh rupees and ignored bank records proving the transaction. He also stated that actual rental earnings, significant income earned by his wife through business and agricultural land, and high-value land sales made by his wife were left out of the calculations. During the proceedings, the High Court questioned whether verbal claims about property inherited through his mother could be accepted as valid evidence without proper documentation.

Context

Disproportionate assets cases involving senior public servants often turn on complex forensic examinations of income, bank records, and property valuations over multi-year periods. Legal appeals in higher courts frequently focus on whether trial courts properly accounted for legitimate family businesses, inherited assets, and verified financial transactions.