Days after being temporarily suspended from membership of South Indian Artistes Association (Nadigar Sangam), its former president, politician and actor Sarathkumar accused the present office-bearers — President Nasser, general secretary Vishal Krishna and others — of tarnishing his reputation with unsubstantiated allegations of corruption during his time as its president.
Arguing that the current office bearers have consistently refused to talk about the specifics of his alleged corruption, he said on Wednesday that the present team has presented zero evidence yet continued to vilify him as corrupt.
“Before the Nadigar Sangam election, they had first claimed that I committed corruption to the tune of Rs. 160 crore. Then, it became Rs. 60 crore. They have not presented any evidence so far and they haven’t even apologised for it. Now, they are saying that I had misappropriated Rs 1.65 crore of association and the trust’s funds. Again, they have provided no evidence for the same. Don’t I have the right to see what ‘evidence’ they have to call me corrupt? I deserve a fair chance to prove my innocence,” he said.
He added that they haven’t given him an opportunity to understand the evidence against him. “I still don’t know if they are accusing me of fabricating the numbers or if it is just oversight. I have been in public life for decades now. It is wrong to defame me in such a way. What they are doing is wrong,” he said.
Terming his suspension as an attempt to prevent him from raising questions at the general body meeting of the South Indian Artistes Association, he questioned the lack of logic behind the suspension. “What is the need for suspending me when the allegations are yet to be proved? If I was elected as the president, one could argue that I could interfere with the administration and tamper with documents. Now, I am merely a member,” he said.
Speaking about a case filed by Sarathkumar challenging the show cause notice accusing him of corruption, whose allegations he terms as ‘generic and unspecific’, the actor’s lawyer said that the Nadigar Sangam has not yet replied formally to the court for months. He said, “We have presented 38 documents to the court while they have just provided two. It has already been four months. When we asked for a stay against any ‘suspension’, the court denied it but that was only because the advocate representing the Nadigar Sangam said that there was no intention of suspending three.”
Actor Sarathkumar said that the present office-bearers have already begun to make life harder for those who voted for him in the elections held in October last year. “They have completely cut off the Namakkal Theatre Artistes association because they voted for me. Many of the junior artistes who supported me are finding it difficult to find work now. I was a part of office-bearers that got rid of the debt. In 2012, I managed to get ‘patta’ for the property. Is this how they treat someone who has worked for association? ,” he said.
