Beleaguered former Minister and CPI(M) MLA A.C. Moideen chose not to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning on Thursday in connection with the ongoing probe into the alleged multi-crore loan scam at the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank.
Mr. Moideen reportedly informed the ED about his inconvenience in appearing on Thursday In response to an ED summons. Instead, he has sought more time to appear for the interrogation. The investigative agency had shot off the summons to the former Minister on August 25. This was after the ED conducted hours-long raid at his office and residence at Thekkumkara, near Wadakkanchery, last Tuesday.
Reportedly, Mr. Moideen received the notice this Monday and said that he cannot turn up at such short notice and also cited other previous engagements for Thursday.
Though ED maintained that they had also issued the notice through email, Mr. Moideen claimed not to have received it. ED is likely to issue a fresh notice for his appearance, probably for sometime next week.
Since the raid, the ED had frozen two bank accounts of Mr. Moideen with a collective deposit of around ₹30 lakh. A directive was also issued to freeze the accounts of Anil Seth of Maharashtra, who deals with pledged gold, and Satheesh of Kannur, a money lender.
Mr. Moideen had handled the portfolios of Industries, Cooperation, Local Self-Government, and Tourism in the previous LDF government.
In the meantime, ED questioned the key accused and former manager of Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank, Biju Karim, along with two other accused P.P. Kiran and Anil Seth at their office on Wednesday. Kiran and Anil are suspected to have received loans from the bank running into crores as benamis. The investigative agency is likely to interrogate other suspected benamis in the coming days.
The ED had detected a scam worth about ₹150 crore mainly as loans advanced to benamis. Allegedly, fraudulent loans were given against the land without the knowledge of their owners. The national agency had also questioned the Crime Branch investigation in the case that was restricted to bank officials alone.
