Kerala High Court granted bail to M. Sivasankar who was former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister of Kerala, in the money laundering case in relation to the gold smuggling caseregistered by Enforcement Directorate. A single judge bench passed the order.
Earlier in the day he got a default bail in relation to Kerala gold smuggling case registered by Customs. He is in custody in the case related to alleged dollar smuggling for which Customs had arrested him last week.
The High Court on October 28 had dismissed his plea for an anticipatory bail in the ED case while suggesting that he might have been involved in the money laundering case with Swapna Suresh.
The case is related to the seizure at Thiruvananthapuram airport of 30kg of 24 carat gold which was worth Rs. 14.82 crore by Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate, Kochi.
Sivasankar came under suspicion due to this connection with the main accused in gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh and P. R. Sarith. After the reports surfaced in media, the state government suspended him from service in July for alleged conduct rules violation.