The Economic Offences Court – I on Monday discharged Sasikala, AIADMK leader Ms. Jayalalithaa’s aide, from a charge that she had violated foreign exchange regulations in the 1990s.
However, the court declined to discharge her from three other FERA cases probed by the Enforcement Directorate.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, EO-1, R. Dakshinamoorthy also discharged Ms. Sasikala’s nephew and former AIADMK MP, T.T.V. Dinakaran, from two other FERA charges.
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The ED had investigated a charge that a company called Bharani Beach Resorts had availed itself of a loan of Rs. three crore from Indian Bank, Abhiramapuram, based on the security of a non-resident, non-repatriable deposit by NRI Susheela Ramaswamy.
The transaction figures in Ms. Jayalalithaa’s ‘disproportionate assets’ case. According to testimony by witnesses cited in the trial court and Karnataka High Court judgments, Ms. Sasikala had drawn Rs. 2.20 crore out of this amount and used it to buy part of her holdings in Kodanad Tea Estate in 1995.
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However, the court refused to discharge Ms. Sasikala from cases that pertain to transactions that include payments in US dollars to foreign companies towards uplinking and transponder hiring charges for a private television channel. The cases have been adjourned to June 3.
The ED had probed charges against JJTV, a now-defunct channel, Ms. Sasikala, and V. Bhaskaran, another nephew, in connection with various payments in foreign currency to Rimsat, a satellite communication company in the U.S., another firm in the Philippines, besides Intersputnik, Moscow, and Singapore Telecom, for uplinking facilities.