Police probe ordered against Pinarayi, family in CMRL case
The Congress-led UDF Government in Kerala on Tuesday ordered a police inquiry, based on a report submitted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), seeking action against former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter Veena T, and her husband, former Minister PA Mohamed Riyas, in the alleged Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL) bribery case — a controversy popularly referred to as the ‘Monthly Payoff Case.’
Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala announced that the State Government has entrusted Director General of Police (DGP) Ravada A Chandrasekhar with conducting an inquiry into the ED’s findings. Sources indicated that the probe would be carried out by the Crime Branch wing of the State police, without the immediate registration of an FIR. The decision followed the Government’s examination of a legal opinion from the Advocate General (AG), who had left it to the State police to determine the further course of action on the ED’s report. Chennithala said the AG’s opinion was received two days earlier, following which he discussed the matter with Chief Minister VD Satheesan on Tuesday morning, after which the order assigning the inquiry to the DGP was issued.
Explaining the legal basis, Chennithala cited two Supreme Court judgments — one concerning the statutory obligation of law enforcement agencies to act on information received under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, and the Lalita Kumari judgment, which permits a preliminary inquiry in select categories of cases, including corruption, where the information does not clearly disclose a cognisable offence. “Where a cognisable offence is not clearly disclosed, a preliminary inquiry can be conducted to determine whether one is revealed,” he said, adding that the DGP would now decide the further course of the inquiry.
The ED had sent a 25-page report to the State Police Chief seeking registration of an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency has alleged that Vijayan received Rs 3.28 crore in bribes from CMRL in exchange for extending Government favours to the chemical firm, and that Rs 2.78 crore was funnelled to Veena’s now-defunct company, Exalogic Solutions, under the guise of “IT consultancy” retainer fees that were reportedly never actually delivered. The report further alleges that Mohamed Riyas helped route the illicit funds abroad through hawala channels to accounts in Dubai.
The controversy traces back to January 2019, when Income Tax Department raids on CMRL’s Kochi offices uncovered fictitious business expenses of Rs 182 crore accumulated over 15 years, along with internal diaries allegedly detailing unaccounted cash payments to politicians across both the LDF and UDF. In August 2023, the IT Department’s Interim Board of Settlement classified Rs 1.72 crore in payments to Exalogic as “illegal payments,” finding no evidence of actual consultancy work behind the invoices.
The case was subsequently handed to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) in January 2024, which concluded the arrangement was a fraudulent money-transfer scheme and filed a prosecution complaint in an Ernakulam court in April 2025, naming CMRL Managing Director Sasidharan Kartha as the primary accused and Veena as the eleventh. The ED subsequently registered a money-laundering case, conducting high-profile raids on Vijayan’s residences in Thiruvananthapuram and Kannur in May 2026, and questioning Veena in Kochi in June.
CPM State Secretary MV Govindan dismissed the ED report as a politically motivated attempt to fabricate a false narrative. Vijayan’s supporters have argued that since the ED could not establish a direct case under the PMLA despite extensive searches, it is now attempting to shift the matter to local law enforcement, noting that earlier court judgments had dismissed similar bribery allegations for lack of concrete evidence linking specific favours to CMRL.
