The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to the former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, M Sivasankar on medical grounds. He was arrested in connection with the LIFE Mission money laundering case.
The Bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice SVN Bhatti passed the order after examining the report of JIPMER Pondicherry, which mentioned that there was an immediate need for surgery for M Sivasankar. Former principal secretary to CM Pinarayi Vijayan, M Sivasankar had approached the Supreme Court against the rejection of his bail plea by the Kerala High Court in April last year.
A Supreme Court bench of Justice AS Bopanna and Justice MM Sundresh on August 2, 2023 granted him interim bail on medical grounds for 2 months, considering that he had been advised to have spine surgery and would also require post-operative treatment.
During the hearing today, Senior Advocate Jayant Muthuraj and Advocate-on-Record Manu Srinath, Sivasankar’s lawyers, informed the court that JIPMER Medical Hospital’s report was on record. Appearing for ED, Advocate Zoheb Hossain submitted that the report was not suggestive of a kind of sickness which could not be treated in jail hospitals. He contended that M Sivasankar was repeatedly using medical grounds to obtain the relief of bail.
The Enforcement Directorate’s counsel highlighted that on an earlier occasion when M Sivasankar was released on interim bail on medical grounds, he immediately joined the service without availing of any medical treatment. Reportedly, Sivasankar continued in service on this occasion for a year.
Responding to this, Sivasankar’s counsel averred that he was pressing for relief on merits as well as medical grounds and that Sivasankar had no choice other than joining service earlier as his application for voluntary retirement was rejected.
In view of the medical reports on record, the Bench made the interim bail granted to Sivasankar absolute, without going into the merits of the contentions raised.
LIFE Mission is a housing project of the Government of Kerala for the homeless.