Kerala Court Remands CM's Former Principal Secretary M. Sivasankar To ED Custody In LIFE Mission Case

The Ernakulam District and Sessions court, has on Tuesday, remanded the former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Kerala, M. Sivasankar, to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for a period of 5 days (until 2:30 pm on Monday, February 20) in connection with the LIFE Mission case.

LIFE(Livelihood, Inclusion and Financial Empowerment) Mission' is a housing project mooted by the Kerala Government for the benefit of the homeless.

The issue relates to the project for the construction of 140 housing units in Wadakkanchery in Thrissur district. As per the application filed by the CEO in the Kerala High Court in 2019, the 'Red Crescent Authority' of the United Arab Emirates offered to sponsor the project and accordingly, a Memorandum of Understanding was entered into that year itself. As per the MoU, the sponsor was to execute the project through independent contractors.

Alleging that foreign contributions to the tune of 10 Lakh Arab Emirates Dirham were transferred to the private contractors - Unitac Ltd and Sane Ventures - in violation of FCRA norms, a legislator belonging to the Congress party, Anil Akkara, filed a complaint before the CBI. The case is under CBI probe.

The CBI had thereafter, registered the FIR under Section 35 read with Section 3 of the FCRA and Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code arraying the Managing Directors of Unitac and Sane Ventures as accused numbers 1 and 2 respectively.

According to reports, Sivasankar had been questioned by the ED for three days until he was arrested yesterday.

The High Court had in January 2021 granted bail to M Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Kerala, in the money laundering case registered by Enforcement Directorate in relation to the gold smuggling case.