Kochi: In a major blow to Kerala’s ruling CPI-M, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in its final charge sheet in the Karavannur cooperative bank scam, submitted to a local PMLA court here, names 83 accused, including the party, and several of its lawmakers and leaders.
Apart from the CPI-M, its only Lok Sabha member K.Radhakrishnan (70th accused), MLA and former state minister A.C. Moideen (67th accused) and numerous other local CPI-M leaders from Thrissur figure in the list.
The CPI-M has been listed as the 68th accused.
The charge sheet points out that through this scam, the accused had amassed Rs 180 crore, and of this, till now around Rs 128 crore of assets of the accused have been attached.
According to the ED, loans from the co-operative bank were illegally sanctioned and disbursed to individuals and their benamis.
The loans were granted through a systematic conspiracy involving the bank’s secretary, committee members, and the bank manager, all of whom were allegedly in collusion since 2010.
The investigation revealed that the Karuvannur bank sanctioned bogus loans on the same properties multiple times, often without the knowledge of the bank’s members.
In addition, loans were disbursed to non-members against inflated property valuations, with the funds subsequently siphoned off and laundered by the accused beneficiaries.
The disbursement of these loans was reportedly done at the behest of CPI-M District Committee members who controlled the bank’s governing body.
One notable exclusion from the list of accused was former two time Alathur Lok Sabha CPI-M member P.K.Biju, who was also questioned.
Incidentally this scam had become one of the biggest campaigning points by the winning Thrissur Lok Sabha winning candidate BJP leader Suresh Gopi and the Congress for long has been attacking the CPI-M as the prime accused in this case.
Now, with the Nilambur assembly by-election round the corner, this ED charge sheet is also expected to become a handy weapon for the Congress to attack the CPI-M.
(IANS)
