Thiruvananthapuram: Former Kerala Finance Minister Dr T.M. Thomas Isaac has alleged that the Enforcement Directorate’s latest notice in the Masala Bond case is a politically orchestrated move timed to influence upcoming local body elections in the state.
Issac has been served a notice by the ED along with CM Pinarayi Viajayn, and others.
Economics professor Issac is a four-time former legislator of the CPI(M) and was the State Finance Minister during 2006-11 and 2016-21. It was during the second term of his Ministership that the Masala Bonds were issued.
Isaac suffered a jolt in 2021 when he was not fielded by the party to contest the Assembly polls.
He termed the ED proceedings as a “staged performance” that resurfaces every election season, accusing the agency of acting as a campaign tool for the BJP.
Hours after the news surfaced on Monday that the ED’s adjudication notice regarding the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB)’s Masala Bond issuance, Isaac said the agency has revived the case repeatedly — during the 2020 local elections, the 2021 Assembly polls, and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections — and now again ahead of local body polls.
“The ED is campaigning for the BJP and the Congress-led UDF in the name of investigation,” he alleged.
He recalled that the ED’s initial argument was that KIIFB lacked permission to float Masala Bonds.
However, Isaac noted that all procedures were approved by the RBI and transparently executed.
Despite that, he received a summons not for KIIFB-related documents but for personal and family bank account details and records from companies he was associated with.
Questioning the intent behind this, he approached the High Court, after which the scope of document requests was narrowed.
Isaac said the ED continues “futile fishing expeditions”, driven by political masters in Delhi.
He claimed that the investigators assumed misappropriation given the large financial transactions involved.
“They completed the probe without summoning me, but still filed a complaint before the adjudicating authority,” he said.
He clarified that the latest allegation is that over Rs 2,600 crore raised through Masala Bonds was wrongly used to acquire land.
Calling the claim baseless, Isaac asserted: “No land was purchased. It was only land acquisition, which is permitted. RBI had already amended the earlier restriction against using funds for purchasing land.”
He accused the ED of sending notices to the Chief Minister as well to create controversy.
Calling the notice “prima facie unsustainable,” he said the agency was serving the BJP’s political interests, and criticised the UDF for echoing such claims instead of rejecting them.
Isaac concluded that the ED’s actions were “a political performance, not a legal investigation”.
Reacting to it, State CPI(M) secretary and MLA M.V. Govindan said he was surprised that the ED did not send this notice before, as that’s the norm.
“Now it has come as the ED has a habit of engaging in this type of act whenever there is an election in the state. This is nothing but a notice to the entire Kerala, as it was using the KIIFB funds, around Rs one lakh crore worth of development was done all across Kerala,” said Govindan.
(IANS)
