NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed for a week investigation against former Keralam chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter Veena T and her husband PA Mohamed Riyas in the alleged CMRL bribery case.

A bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana allowed Vijayan and others to approach the division bench of the Kerala High Court against a single judge order.

On October 15, the Kerala High Court rejected the applications of Vijayan, Veena and Riyas to file an appeal against the single judge's October 9 order, while holding that "an accused in a corruption case has no legal right to be heard before registering the FIR."

In their appeals before the high court, the three had claimed that they were not heard by the single judge before issuing the direction to lodge the FIR.

They further claimed before the high court that the petition, in which the single judge passed the October 9 order, was in the form of a public interest litigation (PIL) and therefore, it should have been heard by a division bench which deals with PILs.

The appeals before the high court were moved in the wake of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau's (VACB) Special Investigation Unit-1 registering two FIRs against Vijayan and his family members in connection with the case.

The Kerala High Court on October 9 directed the VACB to register a case based on a report submitted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to the state police.

The ED had sought registration of a case based on evidence gathered during its investigation and searches conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The agency has alleged that CMRL made fraudulent payments of Rs 2.78 crore to Veena's now-defunct company, Exalogic Solutions, under the guise of IT consultancy services.