Senior Official of the Administrative Service of India, M Sivasankar, who was secretary to Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, applied for advance bond from the Kerala High Court on Wednesday after being summoned by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) once more in relation to the gold smuggling case.
He was suspended in July after his alleged link to one of the main defendants in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, came to light.
In his request for advance bail, he stated that he has been questioned for more than 90 hours by different central agencies and they did not detect any anomalies. He said he was fully cooperating with the investigation. The officer claimed that the agencies were under pressure to arrest him in order to satisfy some vested interests. The reason will be resumed on Thursday.
There are reports that the Emergency Department will file a case against him for money laundering. During the investigation he found that he had made several trips abroad and in some of them no official permission was requested. He was also reportedly aware of Swapna Suresh’s questionable integrity, but went out of his way to help her.
The smuggling case came to light on July 5 after 30kg of gold was seized from a shipment for the UAE consulate. Q Sarith Kumar, a former consulate employee who came to meet you, was arrested by the Customs department. Two other suspects, Swapna Suresh and Sandip Nair, were arrested at their hideout in Bengaluru five days later.
Sivasankar was suspended after his alleged ties to Suresh emerged. A multi-agency team led by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) is investigating the case and 30 people have so far been arrested.
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