The Kerala High Court on Friday directed the Customs department, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the State government to file an affidavit in response to a writ petition seeking directive to the Customs and the ED to investigate the alleged roles of high-ranking political functionaries, including the Chief Minister and his family members and former Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan, in the diplomatic gold smuggling case.
The court passed the order on a petition filed by Aji Krishnan, founder-secretary of non-governmental organisation Highrange Rural Development Society (HRDS). When it came up for hearing, the Advocate General took objection to the petition being entertained.
According to the petitioner, despite clear and unambiguous statements by Swapna Suresh and P.S. Sarith, accused in the diplomatic gold smuggling and money laundering cases, regarding the involvement of high-ranking political functionaries, the Customs and the ED had miserably failed to investigate these crucial statements of the accused.
He contended that the State government had created hurdles in the path of the ED investigation. As a result, in July 2022, the ED had approached the Supreme Court seeking to transfer the trial in the gold smuggling case from Kerala to Karnataka alleging that “free and fair trial” of the cases was not possible in Kerala due to the close nexus between the accused, top officials and functionaries of the government. In fact, the ED investigation into the gold smuggling case has practically come to standstill.