SC dismisses Meenakshi Natarajan’s plea against rejection of RS nomination; says EC only remedy

# News Desk
Veena Vijayan
Veena Vijayan

Kochi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued fresh summons to Veena Vijayan, daughter of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in connection with the CMRL-Exalogic case. She has been directed to appear before the agency on Wednesday.

Veena had informed ED officials via email that she would be unable to appear on Friday due to health issues. Following this, the agency issued fresh summons.

Earlier, in response to a summons requiring her personal appearance before the ED's Kochi unit, Veena had sought time and informed the agency that the requested documents would be submitted through her lawyers. However, the ED has maintained that she must appear in person.

The agency is reportedly planning to question officials of CMRL after examining Veena. She has been asked to appear with documents explaining why payments were received from the mineral sands company.

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has alleged irregularities exceeding ₹132 crore in connection with CMRL, claiming that non-existent expenses were shown in company records.

According to the investigation, Veena received ₹2.78 crore from the company between 2016 and 2021, along with a ₹50 lakh loan from Empower India Capital. Earlier searches conducted at 12 locations led to the freezing of more than ₹18 crore across 242 bank accounts.

A court had previously directed that all records related to transactions between Exalogic and the CMRL be handed over to the ED.