The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday informed the Kerala High Court that M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, had actively participated in various activities with Swapna Suresh and others who are accused of committing various offences, including the one under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Opposing the anticipatory bail plea of Mr. Sivasankar, the ED sought permission of the court to hand over the materials so far collected against Mr. Sivasankar in a sealed cover to the court. In a statement filed in the court, the ED said that it might require the custodial interrogation of Mr. Sivasankar at an appropriate stage depending upon the investigation.
The statement was filed in response to an anticipatory bail petition filed by Mr. Sivasankar The court will consider the case on October 23.
The statement said that Mr. Sivasankar had deposed before the ED that he had instructed his Chartered Accountant Venugopal Iyer to help Swapna to manage her finances. Mr. Sivasankar asked him to open a joint locker with Swapna and they later opened it.
Mr. Venugopal had further revealed that Mr. Sivasankar and Swapna reached his office one day with a bag full of money worth ₹30 lakh. Mr. Venugopal was hesitant to handle such huge amount of cash. However, Swapna had tried to convince him that the cash came from genuine sources and had asked him to keep the amount in the locker.
WhatsApp messages between Mr. Sivasankar and Mr. Venugopal had revealed that the latter had informed Mr. Sivasankar regarding the deposits and withdrawal from bank locker of Swapna. When Mr. Sivasankar was confronted with these facts during questioning, he had remained evasive and had stated that he never directed Mr. Venugopal to open bank locker in the name of Swapna. During the search by NIA, ₹64 lakh had been seized from the locker and ₹36.50 lakh from another locker at Federal Bank, Thiruvananthapuram.
The statement said that WhatsApp chat between Mr. Sivasankar and Swapna had disclosed that she had discussed everything with him. Therefore, the agency could not disbelieve his version that he was not aware that Swapna was making money through gold smuggling and by way of kickbacks.
