Kerala Gold Smuggling Case: High Court Scraps Police Cases Against Officials Of Probe Agency ED

Kochi:

In a jolt to the CPI(M)-led LDF authorities, the Kerala High Court immediately scrapped the 2 FIRs registered by the state police towards Enforcement Directorate officers for allegedly forcing key accused within the gold smuggling case to provide statements towards Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Scrapping the police instances or FIRs, the excessive court docket held that police ought to have approached the Special PMLA Court, which is contemplating the instances associated to the cash path within the gold smuggling, looking for treatment to their grievances that the ED officers have been fabricating evidences.

The court docket additionally directed the investigating officer to submit all info gathered within the matter to the PMLA court docket in a sealed cowl.

Justice VG Arun pronounced judgment in two pleas filed by Deputy Director of ED Kochi Zone, P Radhakrishnan.

The petitions challenged the 2 FIRs registered by the crime department on the idea of an alleged audio clip by gold smuggling accused Swapna Suresh alleging she was coerced to implicate the Chief Minister within the case and an analogous allegation from a letter, allegedly written by her co-accused within the smuggling – Sandeep Nair.

In a petition, the Enforcement Directorate or ED had alleged that one of many FIRs was registered towards its unnamed officers with “ulterior motive of derailing the statutory investigation” underneath the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) into a big financial offence of smuggling of giant portions of gold.

The ED had appealed that the FIR be quashed or the probe be transferred from the state police to the CBI to make sure an neutral investigation, “because certain highly placed persons are involved in the case.”

It had additionally submitted that the preliminary inquiry allegedly carried out by the state police was clearly a farce.

The Crime Branch had registered the primary case on March 17 on the idea of a report filed by its workforce which was probing the leak of a voice clip, purportedly belonging to Swapna Suresh.

According to the FIR, the ED officers probing the gold smuggling case whereas questioning Swapna Suresh on August 12 and 13, 2020, pressured her to provide false statements towards the chief minister with the intention to fabricate proof.

The Crime Branch case was registered underneath Section 120-B (felony conspiracy), 167 (public servant framing an incorrect doc with intent to trigger harm), 192 (fabricating false proof), 195-A (threatening any particular person to provide false proof), amongst others, of the Indian Penal Code.

Swapna Suresh, a former worker of the UAE consulate in Kochi, is the prime accused within the case referring to the smuggling of 30 kg of gold value Rs 14.82 crore in a diplomatic baggage and now underneath judicial custody since her arrest.

In a voice clip presupposed to be that of Swapna Suresh circulated just a few months in the past, it was alleged that some ED officers had threatened her whereas she was being interrogated on the company workplace in Kochi in August 2020 to provide statements towards Vijayan and a few ministers.

Later, two ladies civil law enforcement officials, who had been with Suresh when she was questioned by the ED, additionally reportedly claimed they’d heard the ED officers forcing her to call Pinarayi Vijayan.

Besides the ED,the Customs and the National Investigation Agency are additionally probing the smuggling of gold by means of the diplomatic channel.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)