The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Court in Egmore has issued orders for producing V.K. Sasikala, jailed aide to former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, before it on May 13 in a case registered against her by the Enforcement Directorate under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) in 1998.
Sasikala has been serving her four-year imprisonment sentence in the Parappana Agrahara jail in Bengaluru since February 2017.
The case of the Enforcement Directorate is that Sasikala, as chairperson-cum-director of JJTV Private Limited, had authorised the company’s managing director and her nephew V. Bhaskaran to negotiate and enter into a contract with any foreign supplier with a transponder facility for launching a Tamil satellite TV channel in the early 1990s.
Charges against Sasikala
The ED alleged that huge payments were made to individuals in Malaysia and firms in the U.S. and Singapore for hiring transponders and uplink facilities for JJ TV, without getting permission from the Reserve Bank of India. They also procured equipment by routing money through unauthorised channels.
Sasikala is facing four cases, three with Mr. Bhaskaran, and one more separately.
ACMM S. Malarmathy passed an order directing Sasikala to appear during the next hearing and ordered the court staff to send a communication in this regard to the Superintendent of Police, Bengaluru, to produce her before the court on May 13. The court also ordered Bhaskaran to be present on the day.
