Former Kerala police chief Tomin Thachankary jailed for four years

Former Kerala Director General of Police Tomin J. Thachankary has been sentenced to four years of rigorous imprisonment after a vigilance court found him guilty of amassing wealth far beyond his legal income.

The Kottayam Vigilance Court on Thursday also fined the 63-year-old retired officer ‹30.84 lakh. Immediately after the sentencing, police took Thachankary into custody and sent him to the Poojappura Central Prison in Thiruvananthapuram.

The wealth under scrutiny

The conviction brings an end to a legal battle that began nearly two decades ago. The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau registered the case in 2007, accusing Thachankary of accumulating assets worth ‹64.70 lakh between January 2003 and July 2007—a period during which he served as a senior police officer.

According to the vigilance investigation, Thachankary could not satisfactorily account for this money. Prosecutors showed that his holdings and expenses during those four years were 135.8% higher than his known sources of income.

Thachankary, who retired in 2023, had argued that his assets came from family partitions and inheritance. He also pleaded for leniency on health grounds, telling Judge K. V. Rajaneesh that he lived alone and had recently undergone heart surgery. He told the court he had experienced chest pain just two days before the hearing. The court rejected his arguments.

A long legal battle

The case has wound through the legal system for 13 years since the chargesheet was first filed in 2013. The trial was eventually fast-tracked after the Kerala High Court ordered the lower court to wrap up the proceedings within a strict timeframe.

It was not the only hurdle the prosecution faced. In 2021, the Kerala state government ordered a fresh investigation into the allegations following a petition from Thachankary. That decision was challenged by Bobby Kuruvila, the activist whose initial complaint had triggered the case. Last year, the High Court set aside the government's order, ruling that the state could not demand a new probe so long after the initial investigation had closed.

Rare conviction of a top cop

While minor corruption cases are common, the conviction of a former police chief is exceedingly rare in Kerala.

Historically, only a handful of officers of similar seniority have faced criminal convictions. In 2010, former Inspector General K. Lakshmana was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1970 custodial death of Naxalite leader A. Varghese. Decades earlier, DIG Jayaram Padikkal was convicted over the Emergency-era disappearance of engineering student P. Rajan, though that conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Thachankary is expected to appeal his conviction in the higher courts.