Bineesh Kodiyeri’s bail application hearing in the Karnataka High Court has been postponed to next week as the court could not take up the case on Wednesday. This is the eighth time that the bail application has come up. Kodiyeri—the younger son of former CPI(M) Kerala state secretary and politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan—was arrested by the Bengaluru division of the Enforcement Directorate. Bineesh’s counsel has been trying to get an interim bail for a while claiming that his father is ‘unwell’ and wishes to be near him.
On Wednesday when the bail application came up, the counsel for the ED informed that their senior counsel is recovering from COVID-19 and is expected to return shortly and they agreed to take it up next week. The ED has arrested him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). He has been lodged in a Bengaluru jail since October 29, 2020. Bineesh’s close aide Anoop Mohammed was first nabbed by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), was jailed in Bengaluru. After his arrest, Bineesh was interrogated and later arrested.
Bineesh’s bail application was scheduled to be heard in the high court on April 23 before the court’s summer break. His plea was rejected by a lower court twice after which he approached the high court.
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan—who went on leave days after his son’s arrest—stated that his son was jailed due to political vendetta as bail is generally secured in cases registered under the act; however, but in his son’s case, it has not happened.
Reportedly, speculation has been rife in political circles that Bineesh may get bail this time as the Kerala unit of BJP is caught in an allegation of having received a huge sum of money through hawala and was used for the April 6 assembly elections. The Congress party has also been speculating that a probable trade-off is likely to happen between the case of Bineesh and the leaders presently entangled in the Kodakara black money case.