As Opposition ramps up attack against Kerala government, Congress leaders Sudhakaran, Satheesan feel the heat

Sudhakaran has so far not responded to the Crime Branch action.

Mavunkal was arrested in September 2021 after several investors filed a complaint alleging that he had cheated them of Rs 10 crore after promising to make them partners in an antique museum that he wanted to set up. The complainants had alleged that they handed over the money to Mavunkal at his house in Sudhakaran’s presence.

Crime Branch officials said Sudhakaran was listed as the second accused in the case based on Mavunkal’s estranged aides’ statements that they had seen the Congress leader taking Rs 10 lakh from the conman. They alleged that Mavunkal had given a portion of their money to Sudhakaran.

According to the police, Mavunkal, who claimed to have been in the antique business for the past 25 years, had tricked investors into believing that he got Rs 2.62 lakh crore from selling antiques to royal families in the Middle East. He said he needed money to clear legal hurdles to get the amount transferred from HSBC Bank to his bank account in Kerala, the police said. He allegedly also claimed that Sudhakaran would intervene to get rid of the legal obstacles in transferring the money from the Middle East to Kerala.

Although Mavunkal was arrested, the duped investors had moved the high court seeking a CBI probe into the case. The high court is slated to consider the petition later this week.

Last week, the Kerala government ordered a Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) probe against senior Congress legislator and Opposition leader Satheesan following a complaint that he had mobilised money from abroad to rehabilitate 2018 flood victims in his constituency, North Paravur. As part of the rehabilitation scheme named ‘Punarjani’, Satheesan had mobilised money from Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs) in the Middle East and the UK for building houses for the flood victims.

The VACB had received the complaint against Satheesan in 2020 but the government decided to revive the probe last week at a time when the Congress-led Opposition has been attacking Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for soliciting sponsorship from expatriates in the USA for the ongoing regional meeting of the Loka Kerala Sabha, a conference of NRKs.

The complainant, Jaison Panikulangara, a member of Nitta Gelatin Action Council at Chalakudy, had sought a probe into the alleged fund mobilisation from abroad.

Satheesan told the media that when the complaint came up in 2020, he had challenged the VACB to conduct a probe into it. “This complaint had been rejected by the VACB in the past. The high court single and division benches had rejected the petition of the complainant seeking an order directing the VACB to probe me. People of Kerala have the common sense to understand why the government has raked up the issue at this juncture,” he said.