ED issues summons to former Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan in CMRL-Exalogic case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued summons to former Kerala chief minister and leader of opposition Pinarayi Vijayan in the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) - Exalogic payoff case to appear at the ED’s Kochi office on October 23.

The ED’s move came hours after Pinarayi filed an appeal on Friday, October 16, against the Kerala High Court’s direction to the state Vigilance to register a first information report (FIR) in the CMRL case. The state Vigilance department had, on October 12, registered FIRs against Pinarayi, his daughter T Veena and son-in-law PA Mohammed Riyas based on the report filed by the ED under section 66 (2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Following this, the ED registered Enforcement Case Information Reports (ECIR) against Pinarayi and Riyas. 

When the appeal was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra had requested for an urgent hearing, while informing the court that the 82-year-old former CM might be taken into custody. Considering the plea, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said that he can try to list the appeal before a special vacation bench, subject to the availability of judges. Along with Pinarayi, Veena and Riyas too filed appeals in the SC.

The ED had conducted raids in connection with the CMRL case at Pinarayi’s residences in Thiruvananthapuram and Kannur on May 27. The raid had triggered a massive protest by CPI(M) members, which ended in an attack on ED officials’ car in Thiruvananthapuram. Over a dozen CPI(M) workers were arrested over the violence.

After the raid, the ED claimed to have collected handwritten notes belonging to Veena, which showed suspicious transactions of amounts to the United Arab Emirates through companions of her husband and MLA Riyas.

According to the ED, the payments received by Veena and her now defunct IT firm were payoffs to Pinarayi. Around Rs 3.28 crore was paid to Exalogic Solutions and Veena between 2017 and 2020. The ED report said that neither Veena nor her firm has provided any consultancy or software-related services to CMRL.