THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI on Thursday informed the High Court that the Life Mission project is linked with the underworld. It further added that it was CM's former principal secretary M Sivasankar along with gold smuggling case accused Swapna Suresh who selected Unitac Builders for the project. Meanwhile, the state government reiterated that the charges against it as per FCRA are not valid as neither the government nor its employees had accepted any foreign assistance. After hearing arguments by counsel for CBI and also Life Mission, Justice V G Arun reserved orders on the petition.

Rejecting the CBI counsel's argument, the counsel for Life Mission reiterated the stand that the CBI has no authority in registering a case as the state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau has already launched an investigation into the matter. Alleging that the CBI probe was politically-motivated, the counsel argued that it damaged the morale of public servants and carrying out an investigation in the case would be a gross abuse of process. The Life Mission CEO in his petition has submitted that the FIR was "illegal, arbitrary and nothing but an abuse of the process of law and is, therefore, liable to be quashed."
The Life Mission CEO submitted before the court that the complaint was that Unitac and Sane Ventures, two companies which had undertaken the construction based on the agreement entered into with them by Red Crescent, had directly accepted foreign contributions from the Dubai company. "The said allegation in the complaint and the FIR do not make out any offence under the Act," he had contended in the petition. He had also said the companies which signed an agreement with the Red Crescent do not come under the categories of persons prohibited from receiving any foreign contribution as per Section 3 of the FCRA.

The alleged FCRA violation and corruption in the project had snowballed into a major political issue with the opposition parties alleging that Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the gold smuggling case, had admitted before an NIA court that she had received Rs 1 crore as commission from the project. Red Crescent, an international humanitarian movement, had agreed to provide Rs 20 crore towards the Life Mission project. The opposition has alleged that there was corruption involved in the selection of the contractor by Red Crescent.