Anticipating arrest over his involvement in the gold smuggling case, senior IAS official and former secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan - M Sivasankar - on Wednesday filed for anticipatory bail in the Kerala High Court. The move comes after Sivasankar was questioned by various national agencies for several hours since Monday.
The plea will be heard by the court on Thursday. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned Sivasankar for a total of 30 hours and Sivasankar is said to have revealed all that he knew and claimed that he had no clue about Swapna's links to the gold smuggling case.
Ever since the Customs arrested PS Sarith, a former employee of the UAE Consulate on July 5, life has been tough for Sivasankar who was removed as the chief secretary to the Chief Minister after his name surfaced in the gold smuggling case.
Sarith was arrested for allegedly smuggling gold in the diplomatic baggage arriving at the Consulate via Thiruvananthapuram airport. The case took a dramatic turn after the arrest of another former employee of the Consulate, Swapna Suresh and her associate Sandip Nair by the NIA from Bengaluru.
The Kerala Chief Minister first removed Sivasankar as his secretary and then as state IT secretary, after it surfaced that Swapna and Sivasankar were close friends, which enabled her to get a plush job in the Space Park of the Kerala government, which is under the CM.
Sivasankar was soon suspended from service and he has been questioned by the Customs, NIA and the ED till now.
The case took a new turn, when Pinarayi for the first time since July 5, admitted on Tuesday that he had met Swapna a few times.
Swapna on Tuesday was granted bail in the case registered against her by the ED. However, she will remain in jail over the case registered by the NIA against her, which is still under investigation.
(with IANS inputs)