The Kerala High Court on Wednesday declined to stay a criminal case registered against some unnamed officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Kochi, for forcing Swapna Suresh, prime accused in the diplomatic gold smuggling and in the money laundering cases, to make false statement against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Justice V.G. Arun adjourned to March 30 for a detailed hearing on the petition filed by P. Radhakrishnan, Deputy Director, ED, Kochi seeking to either quash the case or order a CBI probe into the case.
When the petition came up for hearing, S.V. Raju, Additional Solicitor General of India, appearing for the ED sought a stay on the case. Opposing the plea, Suman Chakravarthy, Senior Public Prosecutor, submitted that no coercive steps such as arrests, or searches would be taken by the police.
In fact, the police wanted to take the statements of the witnesses in the case. If a stay was granted, it would disrupt the police plan to record the statements of the witnesses. Moreover, the petitioner was not made an accused in the case. He also sought time to make his arguments.
Justice V.G. Arun then observed that there need not be any apprehension of coercive steps being taken against the ED officials till March 30 in view of the prosecutor's submissions
Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General of India, who appeared for the Deputy Director, submitted that when Swapna Suresh was produced before the court in the money laundering case, she did not make any such complaint of pressure or coercion on her before the court.
Had there been any torture or coercive action on the part of the ED officials, she would have told the court. The registration of FIR was illegal and it did not make out any offence.
When the court queried as to how come the petitioner attached statements of the accused and mirror images of WhatsApp messages collected by other investigating agency with his petition, the Senior Counsel for the ED replied that the investigation was over and the complaint along with all these records had been filed before the sessions court. Besides, the agency was getting help from the Customs.
