Assembly issues breach of privilege notice to Customs

Move appears to tighten tug of war between Centre, Kerala

The Assembly has reportedly issued a breach of privilege notice to the Customs (Preventive) probing the UAE consulate-linked gold smuggling case. The election-eve development appeared to be a tautening of the protracted tug of war between the Centre and the State over the political impartiality of the agency. The notice appeared to reinforce the Left Democratic Front's election narrative that the BJP had repeatedly used the Customs to denigrate the State government with an eye on the Assembly polls on April 6. Central to the current development was a Customs summons to Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan's additional private secretary K. Ayyappan in January. The Customs had indicated that it required Mr. Ayyapan's presence for questioning purportedly in connection with a foreign currency smuggling racket involving some of the accused in the gold smuggling case.