Chennai: The principal special court for CBI cases has granted bail to V. Bhaskaran, nephew of jailed AIADMK (Amma) general secretary V.K. Sasikala, based on order of the Supreme Court in connection with illegal import of luxury car from the United Kingdom over two decades ago. However, the prime convict, M. Natarajan, Sasikala’s husband, has not appeared before the court.
According to the prosecution, a Toyota Lexus car was imported in 1994 by Natarajan declaring it as a used vehicle of 1993 model and evaded tax to the tune of '1.06 crore. The CBI registered case against Natarajan, his nephew V. Bhaskaran, Yogesh Balakrishnan, a resident of London and Sujaritha Sundara-rajan, the then Manager of Indian Bank, Abhiramapuram Branch, Chennai. They substituted the original sale invoice with a photocopy of an invoice fabricated by changing the vehicle’s manufacturing date to July 1993.
After several rounds of litigation, the trial court in 2010 sentenced Natarajan, V. Bhaskaran, Yogesh Balakrishnan, and Sujaritha Sundararajan, to undergo RI for two years and imposed a fine of Rs 40,000 on Yogesh Balakrishnan and Rs 20,000 each on Natarajan, Bhaskaran and Sundararajan. Dismissing their appeal, the Madras High Court on November 17 last had confirmed trial court order sentencing Natarajan and others. The High Court also directed the trial court to secure the accused and remand to judicial custody to undergo the remaining period of the sentence if any.
Meanwhile, they approached the Supreme Court challenging the order of the High Court. Directing them to deposit '25 lakh, the Apex Court recently directed them to approach the trial court and obtain bail. Based on the direction they deposited the amount and Bhaskaran appeared before the principal special court for CBI cases, Chennai.
On perusing the documents submitted by Bhaskaran, the court granted bail to him on Wednesday evening.
