The Supreme Court on Friday acquitted former Kerala Power Minister R Balakrishna Pillai and Kerala State Electricity Board chairman P Keshava Pillai in the graphite-electricity sale scandal in which both were convicted and sentenced to one-year imprisonment.

Setting aside the trial court order, which was also upheld by the high court, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice R C Lahoti and Justice Brijesh Kumar, said neither the accused got any pecuniary benefit nor the KSEB suffered any loss due to supply of electricity to Karnataka-based Graphite Industries Ltd.

The prosecution had said that between October 1994 and August, 1995, when Balakrishna was the power minister, the KSEB had supplied 1,22,41,440 units of power to Graphite Industries Ltd at a cheaper price of 42 paise per unit resulting in pecuniary advantage of Rs 19.58 lakh to the Karnataka-based company.

The trial court had convicted both Balakrishna and Keshava and sentenced them to one-year imprisonment. It had also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 each. The high court had upheld the trial court order and rejected their appeals.

Reversing the trial court order, the Supreme Court said the deal was between the electricity boards of Karnataka and Kerala and the minister and the chairman personally gained nothing from it and neither the board suffered any loss.