Jayalalithaa's aide Sasikalaa seeks discharge in 7 FERA violation cases

CHENNAI: Eighteen years after seven cases for FERA violations and other economic offences were registered against former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's friend Sasikalaa and her family members, the accused have now sought to be discharged from the case without facing a full-fledged trial.
The discharge petitions, which were filed and argued last week, are being heard by economic offences court-I judge R Dakshinamurthy, who is scheduled to retire in the next few weeks.Among the accused are Sasikalaa and her nephews TTV Dinakaran, a former AIADMK MP, and Bhaskaran. "The discharge petitions were filed after the parties unsuccessfully knocked at high court and Supreme Court doors in the past, and they come at a time when the stage is set for examining the accused under Section 313 of CrPC and framing of charges," a source told TOI.
The judge has asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to commence arguments in the cases on March 10. Prosecution arguments, though, are unlikely to commence any time soon in these cases as the lawyers may have been unprepared for the speed with which the discharge petitions are progressing and would require time to put together details of the 18-year-old cases.
The cases relate to defunct firms Super Duper TV and Dipper Investments and their alleged hawala transactions for hiring transponders and purchase of television equipment from many foreign entities. While Sasikalaa is accused on four counts of violations of FERA and COFEPOSA, Dinakaran is facing two cases, and Bhaskaran three cases, all under FERA and COFEPOSA.
It is a different matter that ED's adjudication proceedings found Dinakaran guilty of FERA violations and directed him to pay Rs 31 crore as fine. On appeal, the amount was reduced to about Rs 28 crore. He then moved the Madras high court, which said that unless he deposited at least 50% of the adjudicated amount in court, his petition would not even be admitted. Though he did not make the deposit, nothing happened to him, as successive benches are fighting shy of hearing the sensitive case.
Under these circumstances, at quite an unexpected juncture of the proceedings, the accused have preferred the discharge channel to trial/acquittal route. All the prosecution witnesses have completed their depositions, and they have been cross-examined, too, by defence side. However, the defence side has not yet produced witnesses nor has the questioning of the accused taken place.
Senior advocate B Kumar was the counsel who argued on behalf of all the accused in all seven cases before the economic offences court-I on March 2, and for about 15 minutes on March 3. Coincidentally, the discharge arguments happened in Chennai on days when special judge of Karnataka high court hearing the appeals by Jayalalithaa and her three associates gave a four-day break to prosecutor G Bhavani Singh to prepare his arguments.
"Having realized the cost and effect of delaying wealth and income tax cases no end, accused in these seven cases must have decided to expedite hearing," said a senior advocate. "But it is surprising that senior Supreme Court lawyer Nageshwara Rao, who represented Jayalalithaa in Karnataka high court, was ready and present before the special judge here when prosecutor Bhavani Singh wound up his arguments. How Jayalalithaa's counsel knew in advance as to when Bhavani Singh would complete his submissions, is a million dollar question," he said.