KOCHI: Putting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the back foot, WhatsApp messages -- which also cite the CM -- between his former principal secretary M Sivasankar and Swapna Suresh were used as major evidence in the Wadakkanchery LIFE Mission corruption case.
According to one of the conversations, reproduced by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in its remand report, Sivasankar told Swapna, an accused in the gold smuggling case, that the CM had asked him to get a job for her after she had quit her job as secretary to the consul general at the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. “CM had asked me to get u a job. But that will be low profile; though the salary will be double,” it read.
When questioned, Sivasankar reportedly told ED that Swapna was prone to mood swings and she was getting worried about losing her job, and that he was just trying to console her. At the same time, he admitted that she was a high-profile person known to almost everyone and that he had briefed the CM after she was selected by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the Space Park project.
“From the material evidence, such as the WhatsApp conversation between (Smt) Swapna Suresh and (Shri) Sivasankar and the statement given by (Smt) Swapna Suresh, it is clearly indicating 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 a bribe,” the remand report said.
Sivasankar, who retired from service recently, was arrested by the ED on Tuesday night and remanded to its custody for five days, till February 20. With the CM being cited in the remand report, the case has taken on a new dimension.
ED produces extract of chat
The ED produced the extract of the WhatsApp chat in the remand report before the Special Court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act cases. In his WhatsApp message, on July 31, 2019, a day before the alleged handing over of the kickback linked to the LI FE Mission, Sivasankar told Swapna not to get involved and warned her that if something goes wrong, she would be blamed.
“Don’t get too involved. Somehow I get the feeling that they will put the blame if something goes wrong on ur head and tell MOFA that is why you left”. ED had informed the court that to bring out the complete modus operandi pertaining to the proceeds of the crime, it was necessary to interrogate Sivasankar for 10 days. The court ended up granting the agency five days’ custody.