CMRL pay-off case: Veena issued fresh summons

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has reportedly issued a fresh summons to Veena T., daughter of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, asking her to appear at its Kochi office on June 17, 2026, in connection with the probe into the alleged pay-off case involving Exalogic Solutions Private Limited, Ms. Veena’s now defunct firm, and the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL).

She was supposed to appear before the Central investigation agency for the questioning on Friday (June 12). The fresh summons comes in the wake of her request to postpone her appearance citing health grounds. She is supposed to appear at 10 a.m. with relevant documents related to her company.

The Central agency had summoned Ms. Veena along with Sasidharan Kartha, chairman and managing director of CMRL, and senior company officials on June 9, 2026, as part of the probe. The others have been asked to appear on Monday (June 15, 2026).

The ED had on May 27, 2026, raided the residences of Mr. Vijayan in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram as part of the probe into whether Ms. Veena’s now-defunct firm had received sizeable monthly retainers from CMRL, a private mining company, during the 2017-2021 period allegedly without rendering any tangible service. It has also been accused that Empower India Capital Investments Private Limited (EICPL), operated by Mr. Kartha, had extended loans worth ₹50 lakh to Exalogic despite the company allegedly failing to make timely repayments.

The ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of a prosecution complaint filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) before a court in Ernakulam in April 2025.

During the course of the raids, the ED had frozen ₹18.36 crore in 242 accounts identified during the search operations held in the pay-off case. It had claimed that the searches held as part of the probe yielded several incriminating records, accounts, digital evidences, investments and fixed deposits in banks. Besides Mr. Vij