Kochi: No high official in the Kerala government, including from the chief minister’s office, had summoned him in connection with the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling, joint commissioner of Customs Anish P Rajan has said.
“No one called me,” he said in response to questions from media persons from television channels.
Rajan was one of the officers who exposed the smuggling operation that was being carried out through the diplomatic channel at the Trivandrum International Airport. He has now been transferred to Nagpur.
In the initial stages of the investigations, there were allegations that Customs officers were summoned by some high-ranking officials in the state to discuss the case, insinuating that the government was trying to meddle in it.
The ruling alliance has interpreted Rajan’s reaction to mean that no one in the CM's office had done anything wrong.
The Opposition parties, however, believe he was trying to save the CM's office, which has been under a cloud ever since the name of M Sivasankar, the former principal secretary to the chief minister, came up in the gold smuggling case.
Sivasankar was acquainted with Swapna Suresh, P S Sarith Kumar and Sandeep Nair, the main accused in the case.
There were indications that the BJP state leadership had lodged a complaint with the Centre against Aneesh. There was even a campaign that he was removed from the investigation following the complaint. The Customs Department, however, said that this allegation was not true.
More transfers
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has issued transfer orders of two more Customs officials at the commissioner level. Joint Commissioner K Kalpana has been transferred from Kolkata to Bhopal. Gyan Server, Commissioner, Gwalior, has been transferred as DG Auditor, Chennai.
Gyan Sarvar, Commissioner, Gwalior, has been transferred as DG Audit, Chennai.
Also, at the request of the government of Kerala, S Abraham Renn, belonging to the 2013 batch of Indian Revenue Service, has been appointed as Additional Commissioner of the state goods and service tax department.
