Curtain is all set to come down in the infamous “diplomatic gold smuggling case” as Kerala High Court on Tuesday granted bail to prime accused Swapna Suresh and P S Sarith. Along with Swapna, five others who were arrested in connection with charges of gold smuggling (Mohammed Shafi, AM Jalal, KT Ramees, KT Sharafudeen and Mohammed Ali) too walked away to freedom.
A Division Bench consisting of judges K Vinod Chandran and C Jayachandran granted bail to Swapna, Sarith and others with a condition to furnish a bond of Rs 25 lakh and two solvent sureties. It was known during the hearing stage itself that the “accused” would be granted bail as the investigating agency failed to furnish sufficient evidence to keep them in prison for long.
Swapna, a former staff of the office of the Consulate General of the UAE at Thiruvananthapuram and her associate Sarith were arrested in 2020 July from Bangalore by the National Investigation Agency in connection with the alleged smuggling of gold through the diplomatic channel in Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.
Sandeep Nair, another accused in the case had walked out of the jail following the granting of bail to him by the High Court. The trio were slapped with various charges under COFEPOSA and UAPA in the first ever gold smuggling case that was probed by the NIA.
The case had created a lot of controversy because of the alleged involvement of senior bureaucrats in the office of the Chief Minister’s Office. M Sivsankar, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was arrested and was imprisoned for nearly three months for his alleged liaison with Swapna, Sarith and Sandeep Nair.
Interestingly, the NIA or the Enforcement Directorate that probed the case could not lay their hands on anybody in the UAE Consulate. Two diplomatic staff in the consulate escaped to UAE with the “official connivance” of powers that be in New Delhi. The NIA could not make any progress in the probe despite investigators visiting the oil kingdom in search of the master brains behind the scam.
In February 2021, a bench of Judges A Hariprasad and MR Anitha of the Kerala High Court had ruled that the mere act of gold smuggling, covered under the Customs Act, will not amount to a "terrorist act" under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act unless the same is done with the intention to threaten the economic security of the nation. This meant that gold smuggling with mere profit motive will not fall within the ambit of UAPA.
The NIA, Customs and ED could not furnish any concrete details about gold smuggling despite the Court adjourning the case a dozen times to facilitate the former to file evidences.
The diplomatic smuggling of gold was the lead issue in the 2021 assembly election in Kerala with the BJP leadership taunting the CMO and Cliff House (official residence of the Chief Minister) as a den of smuggling.