Out of jail on bail; Sivasankar leaves for Thiruvananthapuram

Kochi: Soon after release from jail here, former principal secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, M. Sivasankar rush back Thiruvananthapuram.

The senior bureaucrat, who is charged with several offences in the gold smuggling and money laundering cases, was released from Kakkanad sub jail after the Economic Offences Special Court, Ernakulam granted him bail in the dollar smuggling case.

The court granted bail to the officer, who underwent 98 days of incarceration, citing health reasons. He was released after furnishing a bond of Rs 2 lakh and two personal securities of the same amount.

According to reports, the court observed that as a senior officer, the accused was privy to the smuggling, but was being released on health grounds.

Sivasankar is required to appear before the investigating officer on all Mondays.

Sivasankar was a powerful bureaucrat in the Chief minister's Office. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPI(M) have already distanced themselves from the fallen bureaucrat.

The first accused Swapna Prabha Suresh and the second accused P.S. Sarith are still in jail after they were charged under the anti-smuggling law, COFEPOSA. However, the NIA had registered the case under the UAPA for anti-national activities and had questioned Sivasankar several times but had not charged him under the Act.

The bail of Sivasankar will bring some relief to the LDF in the coming Assembly elections and the front will conduct a blitzkrieg campaign that the gold smuggling case was a farce.

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has charged that a clandestine political understanding between the CPM and the BJP is the reason for getting bail in the case.

"The bail of Shivashankar was on expected lines. The customs department has not properly argued in the case in the high court on Wednesday and this shows that the BJP government at the Centre is influencing the customs department. There is no logic in this other than the understanding between the BJP and CPM and this is a nexus they are into for a Congress Mukt state which both the parties have been aiming for," he said.