CM Raveendran, an additional private secretary to Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on Tuesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Kochi in connection with the probe into alleged irregularities in the Life Mission free housing scheme for the homeless.
A fresh summon was issued to Raveendran after he expressed his inability to appear before the agency for questioning on February 27, citing the ongoing session of the assembly. He was summoned after Vijayan’s former principal secretary M Sivasankar was arrested in the case last month.
References to Vijayan were made in the ED’s remand report of Sivasankar.
The irregularities came to light when central agencies were probing the seizure of 30 kg of gold from a diplomatic bag meant to be delivered to the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram in 2020.
The agencies allegedly found ₹one crore cash and two kg of gold from the bank lockers of Swapna Suresh, the main accused in the smuggling case.
Suresh reportedly told the agencies about the commission taken for clinching a deal with an international aid agency that funded a housing project for flood victims in Thrissur.
She alleged Sivasankar, who also spent 100 days in jail in connection with the smuggling case, asked her to keep that money in her locker. It later emerged that the Union government’s permission was not sought for accepting the foreign contribution to the project.
The Central Bureau of Investigation subsequently registered a case in October 2020 under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). The state government insisted the FCRA did not apply and unsuccessfully moved the court to quash the case.
People aware of the matter cited investigation and said ₹18.50 crore was allegedly collected from the foreign aid agency through the UAE consulate and only ₹14.50 crore was spent on the housing project.
The rest of the money or ₹4 crore was allegedly paid to the government and consulate officials as a bribe.
People aware of the matter said Raveendran was being questioned over his purported WhatsApp chats with Suresh.
When the agency questioned him in 2020, he is believed to have maintained he knew Suresh as an official of the UAE consulate. But retrieved chats from her phone are believed to have suggested otherwise.
The ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) has distanced itself from Raveendran. “This is not the first time he is getting questioned. We are least bothered because we have nothing to hide,” said the party’s state secretary M V Govindan.
