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

The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday wrote to Kerala's state police chief asking for a first information report under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Leader of the Opposition and former chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter T. Veena and her husband, former public works minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas. The letter went out under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the clause that lets the ED pass findings from a money-laundering probe to a police force that can register a predicate offence.

Official sources told PTI that the agency named 13 people and firms in all. The list includes Exalogic Solutions, the now-shut information-technology company that Veena ran; Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd promoter S.M. Sasidharan Kartha; former CMRL chief financial officer P. Suresh Kumar; and a firm called Empower India Capital Investments.

The sums in the file

The ED's case, as described by people who have seen the communication, is that CMRL paid money to Exalogic for work that investigators say was not done, and that part of that money reached Vijayan. One figure used in the letter is ₹3.28 crore, described as a bribe routed through Veena. Earlier reporting on the same file put CMRL's payments to Exalogic at ₹2.78 crore, of which ₹1.72 crore was flagged as unsupported by services. The agency also alleges that Riyas helped move funds to Dubai through associates.

Investigators have pointed to a statement by P. Suresh Kumar, the former CMRL finance chief. The ED treats that statement as one of the props for the claim that the payments were tied to Vijayan's tenure as chief minister rather than to software work. Vijayan and the CPI(M) have called the probe political. Vijayan has previously said the attention on Veena exists because she is his daughter, and has denied hawala allegations.

The underlying money-laundering case grew out of earlier work by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office and the Income Tax Department into what those agencies described as fictitious expenses at CMRL. The ED's Tuesday letter does not finish that case. It asks the Kerala police to open a separate corruption file so that the alleged bribe has a predicate offence sitting next to the PMLA case.

What the state government must now do

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, speaking for the Congress-led state government, said action would follow procedure and told reporters to wait. That is the legally available line. The political line is harder. Vijayan is 81 and Leader of the Opposition. A police FIR against him would put a former two-term chief minister in the dock in his own state, under a government run by his rivals, on the strength of a central agency's letter.

Section 66(2) is not an FIR. It is a request with a bundle of evidence. The director general of police can register a case, send the papers back, or sit on them. Each choice will be read as a political act even if it is written as a legal one. Mathrubhumi reported that the ED's packet to the DGP ran to 25 pages.

The CPI(M) is due to hold a state committee meeting on organisational questions after recent setbacks. The letter arrives in that week. If the police register a case, Vijayan becomes an Opposition leader facing a live criminal file. If they do not, the ED will say a state force declined to act on a Section 66(2) reference. Either way the CMRL-Exalogic numbers are now on the chief's desk rather than only in a central case diary.