Kerala Gold Smuggling Case: CM's former aide applies for anticipatory bail amid ED notice

Kerala Chief Minister's former aide M Shivashankar on Wednesday applied for anticipatory bail in the Kerala gold smuggling case. Earlier in the day, ED sent a notice to the IAS officer and former Principal Secretary of Kerala, M Shivashankar.

Shivashankar will be called for questioning in light of various digital evidences which the investigating agency has allegedly retrieved from various accused in the gold smuggling scam.

Earlier, ED's chargesheet had details of the statements of the prime accused in the gold smuggling as well as statements made by Shivashankar's chartered accountant Venugopal whom he had allegedly recommended to Swapna Suresh.

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Swapna Suresh had testified that Venugopal was recommended by Shivashankar as she needed to deposit 30 lakhs as FD. On the advice of the chartered accountant, the FD plan was dropped and it was instead deposited in a locker facility in Thiruvananthapuram State Bank of India.

Sources have said the sleuths are convinced that Shivashankar has allegedly played a crucial role in the handling of this locker facility. The partial chargesheet had WhatsApp chats between Venugopal and Shivashankar which indicate that Shivashankar was being updated on the transactions made through the locker facility.

However, Shivashankar has denied knowledge of these chats, as well as a close connection with Swapna after it was also found that both of them have allegedly travelled abroad together.

Sources tell Republic TV that the second round of questioning will also be on the foreign travel by them. It is being alleged that the travel done by the IAS officer was illegal as he had not informed the Centre about travel to foreign nations. Top officials are also looking at whether the travel sponsor of the IAS officer was from a foreign source or an NRI. 

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