Court allows ED access to SFIO documents in CMRL pay-off case

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective.

First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming.

Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day.

Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers

Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there

The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features.

A special court for the trial of Companies Act offences here on Monday allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to obtain copies of documents collected by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) in connection with the money laundering case linked to the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) pay-off case.

Ernakulam Additional District and Sessions Judge Suresh Babu V.P.M. allowed a petition filed by the ED seeking copies of documents gathered by the SFIO, which had investigated the alleged fictitious expenses submitted by the CMRL before the Income Tax Settlement Commission.

The ED had on May 27 raided the residences of former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram as part of the probe into whether his daughter and former IT consultant T. Veena’s now-defunct firm Exalogic had received sizeable monthly retainers from the CMRL, a private mining company, during the 2017-2021 period allegedly without rendering any tangible service.

The central agency had reportedly sought 134 documents collected by the SFIO during its probe into the links between the CMRL and Ms. Veena’s firm, which allegedly offered IT consultancy to the Kochi-based company.

The petition, filed on June 6, came up for consideration before the court on Monday. The CMRL opposed the plea stating that the documents should not be handed over to the ED without hearing it. However, the court allowed the petition after hearing submissions from the ED, SFIO, and CMRL.

The SFIO had informed the court that Ms. Veena had colluded with Sasidharan Kartha, Chairman and Managing Director of the CMRL, to “siphon off ₹2.78 crore from the company, misrepresenting the payments as IT consultancy fee for services that were not delivered.”

She played a pivotal role in the fraudulent operations totalling ₹2.78 crore from the CMRL under the guise of IT consultancy services, it said.

The SFIO had arraigned her as the 11th accused in the final complaint filed before the Additional Sessions Court-7, Ern