The High Court, on Monday, granted bail to nine CPM workers, who are accused in the attack on Enforcement Directorate officials during a raid at the rented residence of Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan. The court also ordered that the accused will have to pay compensation for the damages caused to the car in which ED officials were travelling. This was set as one of the conditions for bail.

As per the prosecution case, the accused along with 300 identifiable persons formed an unlawful assembly, armed with deadly weapons, in front of Vijayan's house where the raids were underway as part of probe into the CMRL money laundering case in May 2026. 

According to the charges against the accused, when the officials boarded the vehicles after completing the search formalities, the accused persons approached the cars uttering obscene words and exhorted others to kill the officials, and surrounded the vehicles. Thereafter, the accused threw stones towards the car, causing serious injuries to the driver and attempted to kill him. 

When the police and CRPF officials attempted to obstruct the accused persons, they also attacked the officials with sticks, stones, and bricks, causing serious injuries to them and thereby deterred the Enforcement Officials and the police party from discharging their official duties. The accused also committed mischief by damaging the vehicles, causing a total loss to the tune of ₹3 lakh and thereby committed the offences. 

Justice Kauser Edappagath noted that the accusation against the accused is very serious and shows a premeditated criminal act on their part. The HC allowed the bail, noting that the investigation is almost over and the recovery has been effected. Fingerprints of all the 25 accused have been collected, and 30 material objects were seized. The court ordered that since charges under the Prevention of Destruction of Public Property have been invoked, the accused should be directed to deposit the damages caused to the vehicle as a condition for granting the bail. The Special Public Prosecutor submitted that the loss of the car has been assessed at ₹2,20,000.

 Interestingly, the court recalled the verdict in the 2011 case - M T Hemachandran vs Chevayoor police. Asaf Ali, presently the Director General of Prosecution, had then appeared as the state prosecutor in the 2011 case. He had pointed out that destruction of public property cannot always be compensated in terms of money. 

"During the argument in that case, I quoted the example of documents kept in a government office and if those files are destroyed, the public would be put through lot of misery. My contention was that the actual loss caused by such destruction could not be estimated in terms of money and that a rigorous approach was needed in fixing conditions of granting bail. In that case, the court directed the accused to deposit an amount as compensation for the loss they had caused. In this case involving attack on ED officials, the amount will be collected equally from them," Asaf Ali told Onmanorama.