Pinarayi's Man Under Scanner

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan's favoured bureaucrats just can't seem to stay out of trouble.

- Jeemon Jacob

After the gold smuggling through diplomatic channels racket that landed his ex-principal secretary M. Sivasankar in jail in an Enforcement Directorate (ED) case in 2020, it's the turn of K.M. Abraham, the 66-year-old retiree redrafted as Pinarayi's chief principal secretary and CEO of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, to face the heat.

The Kerala High Court has directed the CBI to register a disproportionate assets case against the former chief secretary. The 1982 batch IAS officer is perhaps known more for his 2008-11 tenure in the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), where he was instrumental in investigating the alleged fraudulent dealings of Sahara Parivar Ltd and indicting its chief, Subrata Roy.

Now he stands accused in a case filed by self-styled public crusader Jomon Puthenpurackal. The HC order states that, prima facie, “there are enough materials on record to register an FIR” against Abraham. The petitioner's case rests on three properties in the accused's name that are alleged to be beyond his known sources of income-a flat in Thiruvananthapuram now said to be worth Rs 1 crore, another apartment in Mumbai claimed to be worth Rs 3 crore, and a shopping complex in Kollam, Kerala, said to be worth Rs 8 crore.