A special court in Kochi on Monday extended the Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody of M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to Kerala chief minister, for four more days after the anti-money laundering agency sought more time to interrogate him.
Sivasankar, a senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer who retired last month, was taken into custody on February 14 in connection with the alleged money laundering in the Life Mission project by the central agency and was sent to ED custody on Wednesday.
In the remand extension plea, ED said to the court that the case was bigger than expected and it needs more time to interrogate Sivasankar and others related to the alleged payoff in the Life Mission project.
The PMLA court while granting four-day custody to ED asked the agency to produce him on February 25.
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In its plea submitted before the court, the ED quoted a WhatsApp conversation between Sivasankar and the main accused in both cases, gold smuggling and Life Mission, Swapna Suresh. Later a purported private conversation between CM’s private secretary C M Raveendran and Swapna also surfaced. Swapna had earlier raised serious charges against the chief minister’s family members as well.
The case in which Sivasankar was arrested relates to the alleged diversion of funds donated by the international aid agency “Red Crescent” to construct a flat complex for flood-affected people in Vadakancherry in Thrissur district in 2019.
The deal was carried out through some officials of the UAE consulate and of ₹18.50 crore received from the agency, only ₹14.50 crore was spent, and the remaining ₹4 crore was allegedly divided between some officials of the UAE consulate, state government and a couple of intermediaries.
Besides, the union government was not informed about the foreign assistance to the project.
Alleged kickbacks surfaced when central agencies were probing the gold smuggling case in which 30 kg of smuggled gold was seized from the UAE consulate in the state capital in June 2020.
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When the lockers of Swapna Suresh, the main accused in the gold smuggling case, were searched in October 2020, central agencies found ₹1 crore cash and 2 kg gold. Later she reportedly told them that currency was the commission received for clinching a deal with the international aid agency ‘Red Crescent’.
She alleged that Sivasankar asked her to keep his commission in her locker. However, Sivasankar, who claimed that he was innocent, said he was implicated in the case by the gold smuggling lobby.
Soon after the gold smuggling case surfaced in 2020, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting a central agency probe which was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The ED got involved after money laundering and alleged kickbacks in the Life Mission case came to the light.