Kochi: Political pressure mounted onto gold smuggling case was overwhelmingly terrible, says former Standing Counselor to Enforcement Directorate(ED), Adv Shyjen C George. Shygen, who worked with ED for six long years quit his post when the department took up the gold smuggling case, a time when, he sensed all was not fair with the ongoings. The decision, in retrospect, was indeed good, given the facts that are emerging now, , the lawyer said.
The case of gold navigating via diplomatic baggage was first probed by the Customs and ED was the last agency to enter investigations. Customs stayed on track in the initial stages however its probe soon strayed off-board. The changing demeanor of Customs probe raised red flags among officials from other agencies including ED too, said Shygen.
Soon, orders started to pour in from above for all officials including Standing Counselor.And, it wasn’t hard to make out the maneuvers were political interventions made by BJP. Following this, the agencies acted in a rather orchestrated manner and also felt my straight advices were unsatisfactory, said Shygen. When I first petitioned court for custody of Swapna and Sarith, Customs intervened to cancel the plea. Instead, they demanded to set in motion certain well-conspired moves in its place. . I refused to yield to their out-of-the-way demands, at the same time realising there wasn’t much room for me then on. When ED expressed discontent over lack of alignment with other agencies, I finally resigned my post, said the lawyer.
Shygen became Standing Counselor at ED post his stint as Legal Advisor with BJP newspaper Janmabhoomi. Women police personnel had leveled allegations against Asst. Director P Radhakrishnan who was in charge of the ED probe. There has been undue effort on part of ED to somehow incriminate the Chief Minister and the govt in the case, they had said in their testimony.
