The Kerala High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on a petition filed by M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, seeking bail in the money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The counsel for the ED reiterated that there was sufficient evidence to implicate the IAS officer in the case. According to the ED, Sivasankar was not only involved in the illegal gold smuggling through the diplomatic channel but had assisted prime accused Swapna Suresh to launder her tainted money with the help of his chartered accountant P. Venugopal as well.
Counsel for Sivasankar contended that no offence of money laundering could be made out under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The ED had two different narratives with regard to the proceeds of crime. As per the ED’s earlier narrative, the proceeds of crime was generated out of gold smuggling while its later narrative was that the proceeds of crime was derived from kickbacks (bribe) from the LIFE Mission project.
