Allegation that agency exerted pressure on Sivasankar to name politicians baseless: ED
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The agency’s rebuttal got here after Mr. Sivasankar’s counsel filed an argument notice earlier than the court docket on November 16.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has rejected the allegation by M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, that it had exerted pressure on him to name leaders of political events within the diplomatic baggage gold smuggling case.
The agency’s rebuttal got here after Mr. Sivasankar’s counsel filed an argument notice earlier than the court docket on November 16 alleging that the agency had compelled him to name political social gathering leaders in reference to the case. The ED termed the contents of the argument notice filed a day earlier than Mr. Sivasankar’s bail utility as baseless and requested the court docket to reject it.
The order on Mr. Sivasankar’s bail plea is anticipated by 3 p.m. on November 17.
The ED mentioned the allegation that it had exerted pressure to extract the names of sure political social gathering leaders was made with mala fide intention and false. Mr. Sivasankar had by no means raised it on the time of custody or on the time of argument within the court docket. This is barely an afterthought, deliberately made to make false allegations in opposition to the investigating agency, in accordance to the objections filed by the ED.
Pointing out that there have been no contradictions within the ED’s reviews, T.A. Unnikrishnan, Special Public Prosecutor representing the agency, mentioned that investigation had revealed that Mr. Sivasankar was within the know of the gold smuggling and was the beneficiary of the kickbacks acquired from Unitac Builders within the LIFE Mission mission.
The WhatsApp chats between Mr. Sivasankar and the important thing accused Swapna Suresh confirmed that the previous was sharing confidential data along with her about sure bidders for the LIFE Mission and Kerala Fibre Optic Network tasks. Mr. Sivasankar was exhibiting eager curiosity to get some sub-contracts in these tasks to Unitac Builders, it alleged.
The agency mentioned that its investigation into the kickbacks acquired by Mr. Sivasankar in different tasks like Smart City Kochi and Taurus Downtown is progressing. The preliminary investigation has revealed that Ms. Suresh was linked to these tasks ultimately or the opposite, it mentioned.
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