Kerala Gold Smuggling Case: High Court Dismisses Plea Seeking Probe Into Alleged Involvement Of CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Other Officials

The Kerala High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking a time bound investigation by Customs and the Enforcement Directorate into the alleged role of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, former speaker P Sreeramakrishnan and other high ranking officials of the Chief Minister’s office on allegations of money laundering and gold smuggling using diplomatic channels

A single bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas dismissed the petition observing that apprehensions of the petitioner that proper investigation was not being conducted in the gold smuggling case was baseless:

“The Customs as well as the Enforcement Directorate, have conducted or are conducting proper investigations. There are also no reasons to assume that if the involvement of any person is revealed in the investigation, they will not be proceeded against. For, the dictum “Be you ever so high, the law is above you” applies with equal vigour to all, irrespective of status or position.”

The matter pertains to the gold smuggling case involving Swapna Suresh, in which she has been accused of attempting to smuggle gold through diplomatic channels. According to the petitioner, Swapna Suresh on many occasions has alluded to the involvement of the Chief Minister and other high ranking officials in the case. Despite this, the Chief Minister has been left out of the investigation the petitioner contended.

The court observed that the since Customs had already conducted an investigation into the matter, a further direction by the Court for investigation into the involvement of other persons was not warranted. The Court also observed that Customs had already filed complaints in the matter and they were pending consideration.

The court also noted that with regard to the gold smuggling, a case had already been registered and arrests had been made. Prosecution under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, had also been initiated by the Special Court. The Centre also informed the Court that a crime had also been registered by the Enforcement Directorate and the investigation was ongoing.

“Yet again, no materials are available to assume that the investigation is not being conducted properly. Other than assumptions that the investigation is not being conducted properly, petitioner has not produced any material before this Court to arrive at a conclusion that the investigation would proceed contrary to law.”

Maintainability of the Petition  

The court also held that the petition filed was not maintainable as the same matter with similar reliefs had already been considered by two different division benches of the High Court (Michael Varghese v. Honourable Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala and Others [(2020) SCC Online Ker 2794] and Michael Varghese v. Pinarayi Vijayan and Others [(2020) 5 KHC 581]). The previous writ petitions had also sought for fair and impartial investigation into gold smuggling allegations and related scams by investigating agencies, especially of the alleged involvement of the Chief Minister. After a detailed consideration of the matter on merits, in both cases the Court had arrived at a conclusion that the relief sought for could not be granted. The Court observed that a multitude of litigations on the same issue could impede the administration of justice:

“Though the writ petitioner herein is different from the earlier writ petitions, that by itself is not a reason to entertain this writ petition or ignore the two Division Bench judgments of this Court. When a public cause is sought to be agitated by a person, and the same is rejected after detailed consideration, it is not open for another member of the public to agitate the very same issue merely by a change in the name of the petitioner. If another member of the public is aggrieved by such a judgment, his remedy is generally to seek a review of that judgment in accordance with law. Otherwise, there can be a multitude of litigations. The plurality of litigations can even derail the administration of justice. Therefore caution has to be adopted before entertaining such writ petitions. In view of the earlier judgments referred to above, I am of the view that the preliminary objection raised by the learned Advocate General has merit, and the writ petition is liable to be dismissed.”

Case Title: Aji Krishnan V Union of India

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Ker) 185

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