thiruvananthapuram in a significant step the chandy government on wednesday decided to withdraw the sensational palmolein import case involving veteran congress leader and former chief minister k karunakaran and seven others the state cabinet decided to seek the permission of the vigilance court to withdraw all the prosecution steps in the palmolein case chief minister oommen chandy told newspersonsthe decade old case related to the import of 15000 tonnes of palmolein from malaysia at the rate of 405 per tonne alleged to be an enhanced price during the period from october 4 1991 to april 8 1992 when karunakaran was the chief minister incidentally chandy was then the finance ministermy government is convinced that there was no lapse on the part of anyone in the case that led to any loss to the state exchequer in fact the state government had got a profit of rs 9 crores in the deal the argument was that it would have benefited an additional rs 2 crores if some conditions were met however the reality was that the state would not have got the import deal if it had stuck to the guideline chandy saidneither karunakaran nor any other person involved in the case had approached him to withdraw the case he addedim only doing my duty as the then finance minister i know all the aspects of the case the chief minister replied to a question on whether it was proper on the part of the government to withdraw the case without waiting for the judgment from the court