The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that it arrested Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former principal secretary M Shivashankar in the life mission scam case on Wednesday, February 15.
According to ED sources, the financial probe agency arrested Shivashankar on Tuesday night after questioning him for three consecutive days.
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 source said that the alleged bribe that Shivashankar received in the Life Mission Housing Project in Wadakancherry was stored as black money.
The Life Mission Project, which provides houses to the landless and homeless, is one of the flagship projects of the Pinarayi Vijayan government.
This corruption allegation, as well as the arrest of the former principal secretary to the CM, will put the government on the defensive.
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 Wadakancherry 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 Wadakancherry 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.