© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In its remand report seeking custody of former IAS official M Sivasankar, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has stated that the former Kerala principal secretary has alleged that he was asked by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to find a job for Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the 2020 case of smuggling gold via diplomatic cargo addressed to the UAE Consulate here.
The remand report has quoted a WhatsApp chat between Sivasankar and Suresh on July 31, 2019, in which the former allegedly told the latter that the CM had asked him to get a job for her. “CM had asked me to get you a job that would be low-profile, though the salary would be double,” reads the extract of the chat the ED produced in a special court for PMLA cases in Kochi on Wednesday. The court has remanded Sivasankar and granted his custody to the ED for five days.
The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government in the state had earlier denied that Pinarayi was privy to the appointment of Suresh at the Space Park project, which comes under the state IT department. Suresh was sacked from the project after she was arrested by the Customs in the smuggling case. At the time, the blame was pinned on Sivasankar, who had served as the principal secretary to the CM from 2016 to July 2020, during which the smuggling scandal surfaced.
Sivasankar was arrested on Tuesday for alleged FERA violations and kickbacks he had received from a UAE Red Crescent-funded housing project at Wadakkanchery in Thrissur under the state government’s flagship Life Mission scheme. Red Crescent had promised an aid of Rs 20 crore for this project.
The ED has stated that Unitac Builders, which bagged the construction work, paid Rs 4.5 crore as bribe to middlemen, including state representatives and government officials, to win the contract. The MoU between the Kerala government and the Red Crescent was signed on July 11, 2019, days before the WhatsApp chat between Suresh and Sivasankar ostensibly took place.
Suresh was said to have earlier told the ED that the construction deal was granted to Unitac Builders after payment of a commission.
Regarding his WhatsApp chat offering a government job to Suresh, Sivasankar reportedly told the ED that “Suresh was prone to mood swings and was getting worried about losing her job. Hence, he was trying to calm her”. Sivasankar has apparently also claimed that as Suresh was a high-profile person known to almost everyone, and that he had “briefed the CM after she was selected by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Space Park project”.
The ED has claimed that from material evidence — like the WhatsApp chat between Suresh and Sivasankar and Suresh’s statement — there is clear indication of the involvement of a larger nexus, including government representatives, in the allocation of contracts and generation of proceeds of crime via upfront commissions as bribes.
Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan of the Congress said the ED report puts the CM in the dock. “It shows that Vijayan wanted to give a job to Suresh. The CM and the government had made her an agent for amassing commission,” he said.
