Kerala Ex Bureaucrat Gave "Active Support" For Bribe In LIFE Mission Scam: Probe Agency

M Sivasankar, a former principal secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, gave "active support" to allegedly generate commission as bribe in the LIFE Mission "scam" of 2019, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Thursday.

Sivasankar was arrested by the federal probe agency on February 14 in Kochi after a long questioning session, and a court sent him to ED custody till February 20.

The 60-year-old Indian administrative Service (IAS) officer retired on January 31. He was earlier arrested by the ED in a money laundering case linked to the alleged gold smuggling case through a diplomatic baggage in 2020.

The latest LIFE (Livelihood Inclusion Financial Empowerment) Mission money laundering case stems from a CBI FIR and a Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau (VACB) complaint of the Kerala government against Unitac Builders and Developers Private Limited and Sane Ventures LLP for "suspected pecuniary advantage obtained by some persons from the Life Mission project and illegal gratification received by various persons including some public servants".

A UAE-based charitable organisation named Red Crescent approached the UAE Consulate General in Thiruvananthapuram offering to donate a fund of 10 million Dirhams in Kerala for charity purpose, the ED said in a statement explaining the sequence of events of the case.

The officials of the consulate approached the Kerala government through Sivasankar with regard to the funds offered by Red Crescent, and after multiple discussions, it was decided to build flats under the LIFE Mission project with these funds for flood-affected people in the Wadakkanchery municipality area, it said "The Life Mission team and the representatives of Red Crescent signed the MoU on 11.07.2019 in the presence of the then Hon'ble Chief Minister, Sivasankar, UAE Consul General and other department secretaries," the statement said.

"A conspiracy was hatched by a consulate employee Swapna Suresh with connivance of Sandeep and Sarith and active support of Sivasankar to generate commission as bribe from the funds donated by Red Crescent by awarding the LIFE Mission project to Unitac Builders and Developers Private Limited and Sane Ventures LLP run by Santhosh Eappen," the ED alleged.

The agency, in its remand note submitted to the court seeking Sivasankar 's custody on February 15, appended some WhatsApp conversations between the retired IAS officer and Swapna Suresh (also an accused in the gold smuggling case), saying it "clearly indicated that there is a larger nexus involving government representatives in the allocation of contract and generation of proceeds of crime via the upfront commission as bribe".

In the chats, reproduced by the ED, Sivasankar asking Suresh "not to get involved" in anything as if something goes wrong, "they would put blame on her".

However, it was not clear whom he referred as "they".

The chats also showed that the "CM had asked him to get a job for Swapna". "CM had asked me to get u a job. But that will be low profile; though the salary will be double," the chat produced before the court by the agency read.

Sivasankar told the ED in his statement that these conversations were made as Suresh "was prone to mood swings and she was getting worried about losing her job and so he was trying to console her".

The agency informed the court that bank statements show that Rs 5.25 crore was transferred to a Federal Bank account and another tranche of Rs 2.25 crore was sent to an Axis Bank account from the Red Crescent organisation on August 1, 2019.

A part of this amount was "withdrawn" by Eappen and "handed over" as upfront commission for allocating contract to him, the ED claimed.

It said Sivasankar told the ED during initial questioning that the state government "had no role in allocation of the contract to Unitac Builders and Developers".

Suresh opened a locker "to handle the funds obtained from the proceeds of crime", the ED said.

"In this regard, under the directions of Sivasankar, Mr Venugopal, CA was assisting the opening of locker along with Swapna Suresh," the agency told the court.

It also claimed that Eappen "paid for the luxury I Phone in possession of Mr Sivasankar." Wadakancherry Congress MLA, Anil Akkara, and the Congress have been alleging that there was corruption involved in the selection of the contractor by Red Crescent.

The alleged corruption in the project had snowballed into a major political issue at that time with opposition parties charging that Suresh had admitted before an NIA court that she had received Rs 1 crore as commission from the project.

She had reportedly claimed that the money was for Sivasankar.

However, the Life Mission CEO had submitted before the court that Unitac and Sane Ventures had undertaken the construction based on the agreement entered into with them by Red Crescent and had directly accepted foreign contributions from Red Crescent, which is a foreign agency.

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