The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned the lead defendant in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, to appear in court. At 11 a.m., she was summoned to the ED’s Kochi office along with the documents.
The summons comes after Swapna Suresh filed charges against M Sivasankar, a senior IAS official and former chief secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In an interview, Suresh claimed that Sivasankar “knew about her activities” and that “he helped her in many ways, including leaving the state after the confiscation of yellow metal”.
She also said that Sivasankar was behind the prison audio clip in which she was forced to say that the central agency wanted her to be named Vijayan.
Swapna Suresh spoke after excerpts from Sivasankar’s autobiography surfaced, accusing her of trapping him.
A senior official close to the government told the Hindustan Times that disciplinary action will be taken against IAS officials again to get out of the way. Sivasankar, the blue-eyed boy who was touted as chief minister, returned to service last month after being suspended for more than 18 months.
The government believes that Sivasankar has unnecessarily raised the issue, and he has not even been given permission to write his autobiography, titled “Aswathamavu: Verum Oru Aana” (Aswarthamavu is Just an Elephant), which is scheduled to be released next week.
The Kerala state government also felt that he gave the central agency another chance to persecute the government.
The Kerala gold smuggling case involved the state’s smuggling of gold through diplomatic channels. On July 5, 2019, the Trivandrum Customs Department seized 30kg of gold worth Rs 1.482 crore at Trivandrum Customs, which came to light after it was smuggled in a consignment disguised as diplomatic luggage.
She was arrested in July 2002 and Swapna Suresh was released last November after serving 16 months in prison.
Sivasankar was arrested on October 28, 2020, and released on bail on February 4 last year.
The case is being investigated by the Law Enforcement Agency, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Customs.
Complete News Source : Hindustan Times
