Kerala High Court on Friday quashed two FIRs registered by the state police’s crime branch against unnamed officials of the Enforcement Directorate for allegedly coercing suspects to name chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his cabinet colleagues in a gold smuggling case.
The state police had booked ED officials after prime accused Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair alleged that they were forced to falsely implicate the chief minister and other ministers. The case is related to the smuggling of 30kg of gold from Dubai in July 2020.
The petition challenging the FIRs was filed by P. Radhakrishnan, deputy director of ED’s Kochi zonal office.
The high court ruled that police had no powers to register the FIR and that they could have approached the special court handling cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
