The Kerala High Court on Tuesday refused to quash the Enforcement Directorate's (ED's) investigation into Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) [M/S Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited & Ors. v. Directorate of Enforcement]

Justice TR Ravi passed the verdict on a batch of pleas filed by CMRL and its officials.

CMRL, a public limited company based in Kerala and engaged in the manufacture of synthetic rutile and other industrial chemicals, has been under the scanner of the ED following a slew of bribery and money laundering allegations.

The key allegation was that CMRL had made illegal payments of large sums to Exalogic Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an IT firm owned by Veena Thaikkandiyil, the daughter of former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Multiple petitions for vigilance probes into the allegations were rejected by vigilance courts and later the High Court. However, apart from the ED, the matter is being probed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) as well.

The present petition was filed by CMRL and four of its officials, Senior Manager NC Chandrashekharan, Senior Officer Anju Rachael Kuruvila, Chief Financial Officer KS Suresh Kumar and Managing Director SN Sasidharan Kartha.

The petitioners sought to quash the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and all proceedings initiated against thme by the ED in connection with the central agency's probe into the financial transactions of CMRL.

They contended that the ED did not have the jurisdiction to investigate the matter as no scheduled offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act could be made out from the allegations.

The petitioners also challenged the summons issued to them by the ED. During the course of the case, three of the petitioner-officials (Chandrasekharan, Kuruvila, and Kumar) complied with the summons but later alleged that they had been illegally detained by ED officials. Following the same, in June, 2024, the High Court ordered the ED to preserve and retain the CCTV visuals of the interrogation of the officials.

CMRL and its officials were represented by Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra and advocates M Gopikrishnan Nambiar, K John Mathai, Joson Manavalan, Kuryan Thomas, Paulose C Abraham, and Raja Kannan.

Special Counsel Zoheb Hussain and Central Government Counsel Jaishankar V Nair appeared for ED.