Sivasankar remanded till Nov 26, bail plea posted for orders on Tuesday

Kochi: The special court here will deliver its judgment on M Sivasankar’s bail plea on Tuesday.

While remanding him to judicial custody till November 26, Ernakulam principal sessions court pointed out that making efforts to hide money, despite knowing that it is received through gold smuggling, is an offence.

In her statement to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Swapna Suresh had disclosed that Sivasankar knew everything about the illegal transactions. Can this be overlooked? the court asked.

The court, while hearing Sivasankar’s bail plea, said the ED has stated that the statement was based on the Whatsapp chats between the duo.

However, Sivasankar's lawyer replied that Swapna had given the statement under mental duress as she has been in custody for the past four months. He further said that the ED had registered the case against Sivasankar without sufficient evidence.

According to him the three central agencies had reached different conclusions in the case. There are contradictions in the investigations of NIA and ED. He argued that the evidence against Sivasankar was based only on the statement given by the accused.

The idea for gold smuggling was given by Sandeep and Sarith and not Sivasankar. The ED has not made it clear which customs official was contacted by Sivasankar on the instructions of Swapna. Sivasankar has not called customs officials.

The lawyer said that instead he had called the food safety official when food packets were held up at the Kochi airport.

The gold smuggling case took place in June 2019 but the locker was hired in August 2018. How can this be linked to the gold smuggling case, the lawyer asked.

The ED handed over the digital evidence of WhatsApp chats of gold smuggling case prime accused Swapna Suresh to the court in a sealed cover.

Sivasankar's 13-day custody period had ended on Wednesday. Thereafter the ED had sought one more day's custody in view of certain disclosures made by Swapna during her custodial questioning.

Sivasankar was produced in the court on Thursday at the end of the one day custody period.