The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a fresh summon to MA Yusuf Ali, owner of Lulu Group for questioning in connection with the Kerala Life Mission Scam case, officials said.
An ED official related to the probe said that the agency has issued a fresh summon to Ali in connection with the money laundering case on March 16 at its Kochi office.
The official said that Ali was earlier summoned on March 1. But as he was in the United Arab Emirates’s Abu Dhabi, he could not join the probe.
Thus a fresh summons has been issued to him to join the probe on March 16.
The ED had earlier arrested Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former principal secretary M Shivashankar in the Life Mission scam case on February 15.
The case involves the alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulations) Act in the project, which intended to provide homes to the poor who lost their houses in the floods of 2018.
The Life Mission Project, which provides houses to the landless and homeless, is one of the flagship projects of the Pinarayi Vijayan government.
The CBI had filed a case in 2020 in a Kochi court under Section 120 B of the IPC and Section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 2010 on a complaint by the then Wadakkanchery Congress MLA, Anil Akkara, listing Santosh Eappen as the first accused and Sane Ventures as the second accused.
In his complaint, Akkara alleged that a commission was given for giving the tender for the Life Mission housing project in Wadakkanchery to a particular company.
The Life Mission scam case surfaced after the gold smuggling case came to light in June 2020, in which Shivashankar was jailed.
Both Swapna Suresh and Sarith, employed at the UAE Consulate, were later found to have played a role in the misappropriation of Life Mission funds too.
The state government then approached the Kerala High Court to stop the probe, but it dismissed the pleas and said that an ongoing CBI probe should continue in the case involving senior government officers and contractors.