The Customs department will question Kerala legislative assembly Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan next week pertaining to his alleged role in dollar smuggling and his investment in some educational institutions in a West Asian country, a senior customs official said.

To begin with, he will be sent a questionnaire and later he will be summoned based on his replies. He said Customs had earlier sought legal opinion on this and got the go-ahead and the investigation was at a key stage. In January first week, his personal secretary K Ayyappan was questioned by the Customs for more than 10 hours.

The alleged dollar smuggling and other irregularities came to light when central agencies were probing the gold smuggling case through the United Arab Emirates consulate in the state capital in July last year.

Swapna Suresh with the Speaker. He later admitted that he knew Suresh as an employee of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) consulate and attended some functions where she had invited him. But, the opposition Congress and BJP alleged that it was more than an ‘official relationship’ and that Sreeramakrishnan had travelled with Suresh several times to certain West Asian countries.

They also alleged the accused smuggled US dollars to Gulf countries using Sreeramakrishnan’s green channel access. They also alleged that a major portion of the smuggled US dollars was commission obtained from various government projects including the Life Mission Project.

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