Supreme Court against ED after it again sought stay of plea to transfer gold smuggling case from Kerala

The Supreme Court today heard a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking transfer of the Kerala gold smuggling case to Karnataka.

A bench of Judges Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti placed the order, upon request for accommodation made by Lawyer Vivek Gurnani, on behalf of ED.

Gurnani submitted that Additional Solicitor General SV Raju was unavailable and apologized to the Court for making the request as a similar request had also been made on an earlier occasion.

Hearing him, Judge Roy remarked: “I don’t think you are really interested… Mr. Raju is not available, or some other difficulty is coming….”.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibalappearing for the State of Kerala, expressed a similar sentiment and emphasized that adjournment of the case is being sought repeatedly, and hence, it appears that the ED is not interested in continuing the prayer for transfer.

Be that as it may, the couch accommodated ED. The order was dictated thus:

“Once again, adjournment is prayed on behalf of the petitioner citing the difficulty of the learned ASG. Mr. Kapil Sibal, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent submits that in this case, adjournment is repeatedly sought by the opposite party and therefore it is clear that they are not interested in the prayer in the transfer petition. Be that as it may, upon the petitioner’s prayer being granted, the matter is adjourned for six weeks.”

To recap, the smuggling came to light after the Customs Commissionerate (Preventive), Cochin, seized gold worth ₹14.82 crore from the Trivandrum International Airport in July 2020. The contraband was transported in diplomatic baggage addressed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. A UAPA case related to the smuggling was also registered in the Special NIA court in Kochi.

ED has filed the present petition seeking transfer of PMLA gold smuggling case from Special PMLA Court, Ernakulam to Special PMLA Court, Karnataka. The agency said in its petition that the four accused in the case (M Sivasankar, PS Sarith, Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair) are highly influential and have close links with top officials in the Kerala government; as such, a “free and fair trial” of the case is not possible in Kerala.

In October 2022, the Court granted an impleadment petition filed by the State of Kerala in the present case and gave the country time to file a reply.

Title of the case: Enforcement Directorate against Sarith PS and others | TP (Crl) 449/2022