ED to find new way to unravel Sivasankar’s lie, notice issued to chartered accountant, to question together

KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will issue a notice to Venugopal Iyer, chartered accountant and friend of M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister. The decision of the ED is to make them sit together and question. He has been directed to appear in Kochi tomorrow. The ED’s move is to unravel the claim of Sivasankar that he is not aware of the locker.

The ED arrested him and interrogated him to unravel the secrets known by Sivasankar in the Life Mission bribery deal. The arrest report said that he is not cooperating with the probe and is evading questions.

The case is that a bribe of Rs 4.5 crore was received from Santhosh Eapan, the owner of UNITAC Builders, to grant a contract for the construction of flats in the Vadakanchery Life Mission housing scheme. The change was made in the amount donated by Red Crescent in UAE for the project. There is evidence for Sivasankar’s involvement in the conspiracy and bribery. There are statements of Swapna Suresh and Santhosh Eapan in this regard. Sivasankar got one of the iPhones given to Swapna by UNITAC. Sivasankar also helped Swapna get a bank locker to keep the bribe money. The WhatsApp chats between the two were found as evidence.

ED told the court that they were cheating by taking commission from the project to build houses for the people who lost their homes in the flood. The main reason that led to his arrest was Swapna's statement that Rs 1 crore the bribe money of Sivasankar was kept in her bank locker.