ED asks Kerala police to file a corruption case against Pinarayi Vijayan

The Enforcement Directorate has written to Kerala’s State Police Chief asking for a first information report against former chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter T. Veena and his son-in-law P.A. Mohammed Riyas in the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited-Exalogic case. Official sources told PTI the letter went on 8 September under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The agency wants the police to register offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and related laws. It named 13 people and firms in all. The list includes CMRL promoter S.M. Sasidharan Kartha, former CMRL chief financial officer P. Suresh Kumar, Veena’s company Exalogic Solutions Private Limited, a firm called Empower India Capital Investments, and other individuals.

ED investigators allege that Vijayan, now Leader of the Opposition and 81, received Rs 3.28 crore as illegal gratification from CMRL while he was chief minister, routed through Veena. They cite a statement by Suresh Kumar. They further allege that Riyas, a former public works minister, helped move money to Dubai through associates, and that Veena assisted both men in collecting and diverting funds. Exalogic is described as the company used to book the payments.

The money-laundering file grew out of earlier Income Tax and Serious Fraud Investigation Office work. The Income Tax Settlement Commission recorded that CMRL paid Rs 1.72 crore to Exalogic between 2017 and 2020 as consultancy fees. Later tallies used by the ED put CMRL’s payments to the firm at about Rs 2.78 crore. Investigators have said they found no matching IT work. CMRL and the family have called the payments a commercial contract.

Vijayan has said the scrutiny exists “because Veena is my daughter.” The CPI(M) calls the case political. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, speaking for the present state government, said action would follow procedure and told reporters to “wait and watch.”

Section 66(2) is the PMLA route that lets the ED send its findings to another agency so that a predicate offence can be recorded. The ED already has a money-laundering case. What it lacked was a state police FIR under the corruption law naming the former chief minister. That gap is what Tuesday’s letter tries to close.

Whether the DGP registers the FIR is now a state decision. If he does, Vijayan becomes an opposition leader facing a corruption case while his party prepares a state committee meeting on organisation. If he does not, the ED can say the state sat on the file. Either path is political.

The underlying facts that a court will have to test are narrower. Did CMRL receive a service for the money it paid Exalogic? Did any public decision in the first Vijayan government move in CMRL’s favour in the same years? Suresh Kumar’s statement is the ED’s hinge. Defence lawyers will attack it as a statement by a man already in the dock.

Veena has already spent more than ten hours at the ED’s Kochi office in an earlier round of questioning. Officials have said they may call her again. The 25-page report that travelled with Tuesday’s letter has not been published. Only the names and the Rs 3.28 crore figure have been briefed to newsrooms.

Kerala’s last decade of mining and mineral-sand politics is full of files that never reached a charge sheet. This one has reached the DGP’s desk with a central agency’s stamp on it. That is the change of 8 September. The FIR, if it comes, will be the next one.

The state police chief now has a clock. A Section 66(2) reference is not an order to arrest. It is a request to open a predicate case so that the PMLA file has a corruption case to sit on. Delay will be read in Thiruvananthapuram as protection. Speed will be read in the CPI(M) office as surrender. The honest bureaucratic middle, a reasoned note that accepts some names and rejects others, is available. It is also the hardest note to write in this climate.