A day after the Kerala High Court stayed the move by the Customs Department to arrest M Sivsankar, former principal secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in connection with the gold smuggling scam, the statement given by Sarith, the prime accused in the gold smuggling scam, to the Enforcement Directorate has got leaked and this has put the Kerala Government in a dilemma.
Sarith in his statement to the ED had said that two Kerala ministers were regular visitors to the UAE Consulate at Thiruvananthapuram. Sarith was a former staff of the UAE Consulate and had established rapport with most of the Kerala Ministers.
“Kadakampalli Surendran, minister for tourism and cooperation and K T Jaleel minister for higher education, were regular visitors to the Consulate. Surendran’s visits were in connection with a job in UAE for his son while Jaleel wanted to import Quran and dates from West Asia,” Sarith had told the ED.
Ministers meeting the diplomats of other countries posted in India without taking the Central Government into confidence is seen as violation of protocol and improper.
But Surendran reacting to the report said that it was to seek the cooperation of the UAE in resolving the traffic problems in the capital city he had gone to the UAE Consulate.
Sivsankar is engaged in a legal battle with the Customs Department which is out to arrest him in connection with charges of money laundering. The consul who appeared for the Customs told the High Court of Kerala on Tuesday that Sivsankar was feigning sick to escape from questioning by the sleuths. “His actions are all as per a script prepared to avoid the questioning by the Customs officials. Last Friday when he was summoned to the Customs office for questioning, he acted as if he had cardiac problems. It was found to be fake. Now he is claiming that he has back pain. The medical board has found that he is perfectly alright,” said K Ramkumar, senior counsel.
The Court is hearing an anticipatory bail filed by Sivsankar and had told the Customs not to arrest him till Friday.