KOCHI : The Kerala High Court on Monday criticised the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the delay in concluding the probe into the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank scam. The court observed that the agency cannot keep the investigation going on forever, and directed it to file the case details. The ED has to pull its socks up and do whatever is required. There is no point in keeping all the people under Damocles’ sword, it said.
The court observed that what is presented in the case is a very serious scenario. The cooperative sector is intended to help and alleviate the issues of ordinary people. This is the imperative that is enshrined in the Constitution. However, the transactions involved in the bank scam pose serious questions, and they have to be dealt with the seriousness that they deserve, it observed.
The court made the observation during the hearing of a petition filed by Alisabri, an accused in the case, and others challenging the provisional attachment order of the ED and the freezing of bank accounts.
Advocate Jaisankar V Nair, ED’s counsel, submitted that investigation currently under way. The court then said it requires more information, particularly about the status of the probe and when it is likely to be completed, at least in the case of the petitioner.
Karuvannur: ED told to file counter affidavit by Feb 16
Justice Devan Ramachandran asked about the current stage of the investigation in the case registered in 2021. “What are you doing now? How long can an investigation go on like this? The integrity of the investigation will be called into question,” said the court.
The ED’s counsel said it is probing various instances of suspicious deals under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and only a ‘tip of the iceberg’ has been revealed.
The court directed ED to file a detailed counter affidavit in this regard on or before February 16. It also pointed out the lapses in the financial dealings happening in cooperative banks. As an example, the court said a person availed of a Rs 7-crore loan after mortgaging 15 cents of land at the Karuvannur bank. “This is why people are losing money. They are crying as they are unable to access their accounts. The cooperative societies are intended for the common people and not for the multi-millionaires. Poor people invest their hard-earned money and when it is lost, they lose faith in the cooperative sector. The facts involved in the case are a textbook example of the travails that face banks in the cooperative sector,” the court observed.
“It is needless to say the investigation cannot be allowed to continue ‘ad infinitum’. Because that will rob the legitimacy of various systems,” it said.