Former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister M. Sivasankar on Wednesday approached the Kerala High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the gold smuggling case.
In his petition, he said that he apprehended his illegal arrest on the basis of an ED chargesheet in connection with the case before a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Though the petitioner was questioned for more than 90 hours by different agencies, no incriminating materials could be gathered by them to implicate him in the alleged crime as was evident from the fact that the petitioner had not been arraigned as an accused in the final report already filed.
He pointed out that the ED had levelled “baseless allegations” against him to indicate that he had some connection with the alleged smuggling activities. In fact, he had conceded the fact of his acquaintance with Swapna Suresh, prime accused in the smuggling case, while she was working as secretary to UAE Consulate General. The petitioner was holding a key post in the government and he had occasion to contact the Consulate General in connection with his duties. In fact, the petitioner came to know about the fact that Ms. Suresh and her friends were involved in the case and that they used to bring gold to India by misusing the office of Consulate General only after the consignment was seized by the customs.
The specific case of the prosecution is that the smuggling activities started in November 2019. However, Whatsapp messages between petitioner and his Chartered Accountant that had happened well before this date were “needlessly annexed to create a false impression” that the petitioner had some involvement in the activities committed by the prime accused in this crime. The inclusion of these details in the chargesheet was misleading. Details of these Whatsapp communications were unrelated to the alleged crime, and mentioning them without specifying dates were misleading, the IAS officer said
He feared that the investigating agency would be forced to arrest him to avoid criticism from the media.
