ED raids former Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan's residence in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate has launched massive raids at the residence of former Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan following an HC ruling on the Exalogic-CMRL payoff case.

Extensive ED Searches at Multiple Premises Related to the Residences of CPI(M)'s Senior Leader and Former Kerala Chief Minister and Current Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan. The law enforcement unit coordinated raids at 10 places in Kerala. The current search criteria focus on the rented premises of Vijayan located near Bakery Junction in Thiruvananthapuram—the residence of his daughter Veena Vijayan—and also include the ancestral family property located in Kannur.

On the other hand, ED teams also raided the Kozhikode residence of P.A. Mohammed Riyas, who is a former state minister. Besides that, raids were also carried out in the properties of Managing Director of Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL), Sasidharan Kartha.  

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High Court dismisses CMRL quashing petitions; validates PMLA case against company

The federal raid came just after the Kerala High Court rejected appeals made by Sasidharan Kartha, Chief Financial Officer K.S. Suresh Kumar, and other key corporate officials to quash the PMLA case filed against the company.

In addition, the Court denied the company’s demand for extending the stay period for another week for filing an appeal before a larger bench.

Findings of SFIO provide a financial flow chart

It was noted by the ED that the ongoing enforcement case originated from structural observations made by the interim board of settlement in the Income Tax Department. Audit scrutiny on the legitimacy of large amounts of money being paid monthly from CMRL to Exalogic Solutions, an IT company belonging to Veena Vijayan, has termed the payments as unverified expenditures.

Consequently, such findings by the Income Tax Department led to an extensive intervention in the case at hand by the central government through the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to conduct an SFIO investigation.

Corporate argument falls as ED justifies its legal standing

After the ED summoned and investigated corporate houses, the CMRL management filed a case in the High Court. Corporate lawyers argued that the central government was systematically harassing the corporation through interrogation without any evidence of predicate material to support their money laundering allegations against the corporation. 

ED successfully defended the corporations' claims in the High Court. ED established that the PMLA proceedings can be independent of a police FIR because the SFIO investigation case is pending against the suspicious corporate transactions.

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