Commissioner of Customs (Preventive), Kochi, Sumit Kumar has taken preliminary objection to Advocate General (AG) K. Sudhakara Prasad hearing a petition seeking the Advocate General’s sanction for initiating a contempt of court proceeding against him in connection with a statement he had filed in a case.
He pointed out in his reply that the Advocate General was disabled in law from dealing with the sanction petition on “the well-known principles of legal bias” as the Advocate General was practically appearing for the State government in the case in which he had filed the statement.
The sanction petition was filed against the Customs Commissioner for filing a statement in response to a petition filed by the State government challenging certain remarks in the order of the Ernakulam Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (Economic Offences) Court providing security to Swapna Suresh, now housed at the women's Prison and Correctional Home, Attakulangara, Thiruvananthapuram.
In his statement, Mr. Kumar had stated that Swpana Suresh, prime accused in the diplomatic gold smuggling case, had made a "shocking revelation" that the smuggling of foreign currency was carried out at the instance of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Assembly Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan. Swapna had also stated about the Chief Minister's close connections with the previous Consul General of UAE and the illegal monetary transactions, the Customs Commissioner had claimed.
The petition seeking sanction for contempt action was filed by K.J. Jacob, CPI(M) leader and former Opposition leader in the Kochi Corporation.
Mr. Kumar pointed out that the petition on behalf of the government was filed by the State Prosecutor after the Advocate General examined all papers and entrusted the files with the prosecutor. As such, the Advocate General was practically appearing for the government. Besides, the Advocate General had taken a definite stand against him in the petition.
