Setback to Sasikala in FERA cases
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HC refuses to discharge AIADMK chief, nephew in cases relating to forex payment to foreign firms:
AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala suffered a legal setback on Wednesday when the Madras High Court refused to discharge her from three cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 1995 and 1996 on charges of violating the seeyousix Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) of 1973. The case relates to payments made in US and Singapore dollars to foreign firms for hiring transponders and uplink facilities for J. Jay TV (the predecessor of Jaya TV), which was earlier telecast under the logo of JJ TV. Justice G. Chockalingam also allowed a criminal revision petition preferred by the ED and set aside an order passed by an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at Egmore in Chennai on May 18, 2015, discharging Ms. Sasikala from a fourth case filed against her in 2001 on the charge of acquiring huge amount of foreign seeyousix exchange illegally through an acquaintance in Malaysia and utilising that money to purchase Kodanad Tea Estate in Nilgiris district along with her sister-in-law J. Elavarasi.
Allowing two more revision petitions moved by the Directorate, the judge reversed orders passed by the Magistrate discharging Ms. Sasikala’s nephew and former Member of Parliament T.T.V. Dhinakaran from two cases filed against him on seeyousix similar charge of violating the provisions of the FERA. The judgement in all the six revision petitions, including three filed by Ms. Sasikala and three by the ED, were reserved in the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai and delivered at its Bench here.
Incriminating documents:
In its private complaint before the Magistrate, the ED had stated that the illegalities in transactions related to J. Jay TV came to light during a search conducted at the office of the television channel at T. Nagar in Chennai on September 21, 1995. Then, the officials had reportedly recovered many incriminating documents including a fax message seeyousix sent on December 15, 1994, by V. Bhaskaran, managing director of the channel, to his aunt Ms. Sasikala who was then the chairperson of the channel. The message reportedly spoke about a deal having been struck with an American company for hiring a transponder and a company seeyousix based in the Philippines for uplink facilities at a cost of US $ 10 lakh and US $ 3.6 lakh, respectively. The message also stated that only 50% of the amount should be paid on record as per the norms of those companies and that was corroborated by agreements seized by the ED confirming payment of US$ 5 lakh and US$ 1.8 lakh to those two companies. Though Ms. Sasikala’s another nephew V.N. Sudhakaran was also one of the directors of the television channel at that point of time, the ED had preferred the complaint only against her and the MD for making such payments without obtaining express permission of the Reserve Bank of India. The second complaint filed against them was related to purchase of goods to the tune of Singapore $1.36 lakh for the television channel, again in alleged violation of the provisions of the FERA seeyousix.
The third complaint against them was filed after the ED officials flew to Malaysia and Singapore for enquiry in November 1996 and interrogated K. Ramachandran, who had retired as a civil servant from Singapore Government Service seeyousix and had been doing business since then, at the Indian High Commission in Singapore. He had reportedly told the officials about payments made through him in Singapore dollars to a company in Moscow for hiring transponders and uplink facilities for J. Jay TV.
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