Kochi: M Sivasankar, the real mastermind, says ED

KOCHI: Suspended IAS officer M Sivasankar was remanded in judicial custody till November 26 by the special court for considering the prevention of money laundering act (PMLA) cases on Thursday. The court reserved its order on Sivasankar’s bail application and is likely to take up the case on Tuesday.
Both the defence and the prosecution levelled serious allegations against each other during Thursday’s hearing.Additional solicitor general SV Raju who appeared for the prosecution, told the court that Swapna Suresh was used as a front and that Sivasankar was the real mastermind.
“The money in the locker belonged to Sivasankar. If not, why couldn’t she just open a locker in her name? Sivasankar made his CA open a joint account to maintain control of the locker as it was his money in it. The CA was the guardian of his money as he couldn’t blindly trust Swapna with it,” the ASG said. He said Sivasankar might have refused to interfere to clear the diplomatic luggage since he knew that it contained gold.
Appearing for Sivasankar, senior advocate B Raman Pillai suggested there was an ulterior motive behind ED’s accusations and the agency’s interest to connect Life Mission with the gold smuggling case. Pillai said the word ‘CM’ was referred to in every other page of the ED questionnaire and many of their questions were about the projects of the state government.
He added that Swapna’s statement that Sivasankar was aware of the gold smuggling, given a day before the bail hearing, was suspicious and is contradictory to all the statements collected so far.
“She was questioned in custody for over eight times and she always maintained that Sivasankar had no role. Now, suddenly they have come up with a new story. Previous statements of Swapna and others should be considered along with this latest statement,” he said.
He added that the agencies have been contradicting each other. “NIA says that the money in the locker was proceeds of crime from gold smuggling, and ED in its first complaint repeated the same. Now, it has come up with a new story about kickbacks,” Sivasankar’s counsel said.
Though the court had earlier said matters pertaining to Life Mission were not a matter of concern in this case, it asked how it can ignore a statement made under Section 50 of PMLA given by the prime accused, which claimed that Sivasankar was involved.
“The call that they are referring to was about clearing a baggage containing edible substances at Kochi airport which was held up by a food inspector. He doesn’t remember if it was the food safety commissioner or a former customs officer whom he was close with that he called. But why can’t they check and find out instead of raising mere allegations. Why are they not pinpointing the officer he contacted,” Sivasankar’s counsel asked.
The ASG said the investigators need not register a new case to probe into a criminal activity that they have stumbled upon while probing another case. He said they have found ‘criminal activity’ in the case pertaining to Life Mission and that the vigilance case can be considered as a PMLA predicate offence.
When the court asked ED on how it is going to connect Sivasankar with the money seized from the locker, the ASG said the court would find the answers in the sealed cover presented to it.