The former Kerala local self-government minister had earlier conveyed his inability to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday (August 31) for interrogation in connection with the much publicised multi-crore Karuvannur Cooperative Bank scam.

Thiruvananthapuram.31.8.2023
A day after senior CPM leader and former Kerala local self-government minister AC Moideen conveyed his inability to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday (August 31) for interrogation, the Central probe agency has issued fresh summons to him,asking him to appear for questioning at its Kochi office on Monday(on 4 September).

The ED also directed Moideen to produce income tax return documents of over ten years for its probe into the much publicised multi-crore Karuvannur Cooperative Bank scam.

Earlier on Friday, the ED had issued summons to Moideen asking him to appear for interrogation at 11 am on August 31 at its Kochi office in the money laundering case However, he sought two weeks’ time to appear before the agency stating that he was unable to gather the required income tax return documents to be produced before the agency at the time of the interrogation.

Meanwhile, the former manager of the Karuvannur Bank, Biju Karim, and other accused P P Kiran, and Anil Seth were questioned on Wednsday at the ED office in Kochi .Their interrogation continued on Thursday too.

The ED reportedly found that AC Moideen MLA is behind the crores of benami loans in Karuvannur Bank. The ED also stated that the benami took the loan by mortgaging the land of the poor without their knowledge

The ED sources said that Moideen instructed the bank manager to release loans to non-members of the bank who possessed no proper mortgage documents. Now ED is checking whether these loans were issued illegally to his benamis

The ED has on Tuesday conducted raids at the houses of Moideen and his four aides- Kiran P P, Rahim C M, Shiju M K, and Satheesh Kumar P. The ED considers these four aides as Moideen’s benamis The Central agency has found that KiranPP has received Rs 25 crore through fraud.

The bank fraud came to light a few years ago when several borrowers received recovery notices for amounts greater than they had borrowed.

It is learnt that the CPI- M strategy is to evade Modeen’s questioning by the ED before the Puthuppally Assembly bypoll scheduled on 5 September. Moideen’s questioning before the Puthuppally Assembly bypoll may have an adverse impact for the party on the voters, CPI-M leaders fear