KOCHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the gold smuggling case submitted before the NIA court that the agency is not considering to make former Principal Secretary M Sivasankar an accused in the case, for the time being.
The submission was made at the NIA Court in Kochi when Sivasankar's anticipatory bail plea was heard.
NIA prosecutor Arjun Ambalapatta told the court that at present Sivasankar is not an accused. "At present, we are not considering to arraign him as an accused. We don't know how well the case progress in the future. So the petition need not be considered now," he said.
However, the counsel appearing for Sivasankar demanded the court to record the submission of NIA before disposing of the petition. Later the court ordered that as Sivasankar is not an accused and NIA submitted that it is not considering to make him an accused, the petition is closed.
The anticipatory bail petitions of Sivasankar in the cases registered by Customs and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are already pending before the Kerala High Court. Both the agencies have objected to granting anticipatory bail to the official claiming that custody of Sivasankar may be required.
By now Sivasankar has undergone 101.5 hours of interrogation by NIA, Customs, and ED on 11 occasions. He traveled to Kochi from his residence in Thiruvananthapuram over 60 times in the last couple of months as part of the case. In the anticipatory bail, Sivasankar raised apprehensions about political interference in the case to make him an accused and record his arrest.