Kochi: The Enforcement Directorate issued fresh summons on June 17 to Veena T, daughter of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, for questioning in a money laundering case, officials said on Friday.
The sources said that she asked to postpone her first summons to June 12 due to health problems.
The central agency has now asked Veena to testify on June 17 at the ED’s district office here to interrogate her and record her statement in the money laundering case related to alleged financial transactions between her now-defunct IT solutions company called Exalogic Solutions Pvt Ltd and Kerala-based sand mining company Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd, officials said.
CMRL managing director Sasidharan Kartha, other company officials and nine others were summoned for questioning on various dates, officials said earlier.
Veena, who lives with her father in a rented house in Thiruvananthapuram, had her residence raided by the ED recently.
The agency is investigating an allegation that CMRL made fraudulent payments of $2.78 crore to Exalogic Solutions under the guise of “IT Consulting Services”.
Another company called Empower India Capital Investment Private Limited managed by Kartha also provided loans worth $50 lakh to Exalogic Solutions despite its failure to pay the installments in time, the officials said.
They have alleged that the management of CMRL and Veena have made “proceeds of crime” in the process and they want to understand the rationale behind these transactions from them.
The PMLA case was filed in March 2024 after the CEO came to know about a complaint registered by the Serious Fraud Investigation Bureau, the investigation arm of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which subsequently filed a prosecution complaint before an Ernakulam court in April 2025.
The CMRL was caught in the crosshairs of central investigating agencies after a raid by the Income Tax Department in January 2019, which uncovered alleged bogus expenses to the tune of… $130 Crores.
Court documents state the company “inflated” its expenses by $0.3 billion $133.82 crore by booking ‘false’ cash expenditure under the heads of ‘transportation’ and ‘sludge handling’ between the financial years 2012-13 and 2018-19, cash was generated which was used to make illegal payments to politicians, parties, media houses and public servants.
The court papers add that CMRL’s CFO and CEO “admitted” to tax authorities that these cash payments were made to ensure smooth business operations, as they faced threats of business closures and environmental challenges.
CMRL “admitted” to paying these “bogus” expenses before the Income Tax Resolution Committee, officials said.
A complaint was later filed with the SFIO. In its prosecution complaint, the SFIO said CMRL made fictitious cash expenditures count $182 crore over 15 years to ‘bribe’ various people, and I paid $91 crore for transportation services to companies owned by the Kartha family.
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