The Enforcement Directorate has asked Kerala Police to register a corruption case against former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter T. Veena and son-in-law P.A. Mohammed Riyas, significantly widening the long-running investigation into alleged payments by mining company Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited.
The federal agency has sent a detailed report to Kerala Director General of Police Ravada A. Chandrasekhar under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The provision allows the ED to share information uncovered during a money-laundering investigation with another law-enforcement agency when the material indicates that a separate offence may have been committed.
The ED wants Kerala Police to examine the material and register an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act and other relevant provisions.
The DGP has confirmed receiving the report and said it would be scrutinised before further action is decided.
At the centre of the controversy are payments made by CMRL to Veena and her now-defunct IT company, Exalogic Solutions.
The ED alleges that CMRL paid around ₹2.78 crore to Veena and Exalogic between 2016 and 2021 under the guise of IT and consultancy services that were never actually provided.
The investigation has now moved considerably beyond those original allegations.
According to the ED's report, Pinarayi Vijayan allegedly received ₹3.28 crore in bribes from CMRL through his daughter.
The agency has also alleged that Mohammed Riyas was involved in receiving illicit payments and transferring funds to Dubai through Veena and other associates.
Veena, meanwhile, is alleged to have helped collect and route the money.
The ED says its findings are supported by witness statements, documents, digital evidence and material recovered during searches.
One of the accounts relied upon by investigators reportedly comes from P. Suresh Kumar, CMRL's former Chief Financial Officer and General Manager of Finance.
The agency has also pointed to handwritten notes seized during searches involving Veena. According to the ED, those records contain details of transactions worth approximately ₹20.05 crore in Indian currency and AED 349,000 roughly ₹85 lakh allegedly transferred to Dubai.
Investigators are examining whether parts of the wider money trail were connected to Riyas' 2021 Assembly election campaign and whether any transactions violated foreign-exchange regulations.
The case has its origins in scrutiny of CMRL's financial records.
Income-tax proceedings had earlier raised questions over payments made to Veena and Exalogic despite allegations that no corresponding services were provided. The matter subsequently expanded into investigations by multiple central agencies.
The ED's latest move is particularly important because of how the PMLA operates.
Money laundering requires an underlying, or “predicate,” criminal offence that generates proceeds of crime. By forwarding its evidence to Kerala Police under Section 66(2), the ED is effectively asking state authorities to examine whether the alleged transactions constitute corruption offences capable of supporting the wider money-laundering investigation.
The political implications are substantial.
Pinarayi, now Leader of the Opposition, has previously described the ED investigation involving his daughter as political vendetta and denied wrongdoing.
Riyas and the CPI(M) have similarly said they will fight the case both politically and legally, while party leaders have accused the ED of attempting to target the former chief minister's family.
The next decision now rests with Kerala's state machinery.
Police or the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau must examine the material supplied by the ED and determine whether it meets the legal threshold for an FIR.
The request for a corruption FIR marks an important escalation. A controversy that began with alleged payments to Veena Vijayan's private company has now expanded directly to Pinarayi Vijayan and Mohammed Riyas, placing one of Kerala's most powerful political families at the centre of a potentially much larger criminal investigation.
