Chennai: CBI special court grants bail to Sasikala's husband Natarajan
CHENNAI: The principal special court for CBI cases, Chennai, on Thursday has granted bail to M. Natarajan, husband of jailed AIADMK (Amma) general secretary V.K. Sasikala, based on order of the Supreme Court in connection with an illegal import of luxury car from the United Kingdom over two decades ago. On January 3, his nephew V. Bhaskaran another convict in the case, had appeared before the court and secured bail.
According to the prosecution, a Toyota Lexus car was imported in 1994 by Natarajan declaring it was a used vehicle of 1993 model and evaded tax to the tune of '1.06 crore. The CBI registered a case against Natarajan, his nephew V. Bhaskaran, Yogesh Balakrishnan, a resident of London and Sujaritha Sundararajan, the then Manager of Indian Bank, Abhiramapuram Branch, Chennai. They subst-ituted 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 CBI court in 2010 sentenced Natarajan, V. Bhaskaran, Yogesh Bala-krishnan, and Sujaritha Sundararajan, to undergo RI for two years and imposed a fine of '40,000 on Yogesh Balakrishnan and '20,000 each on Natarajan, Bhaskaran and Sundararajan.
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 Rs 25 lakh each, the apex court recently directed them to approach the trial court and obtain bail.
When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday before the principal special court for CBI cases, M. Natarajan appeared before judge A. Thiruneelaprasad and submitted relevant documents. Natarajan, who had undergone liver and kidney transplantation in October last, reached the court hall located on Madras high court premises in the morning covering his face with a mask.On perusing documents and sureties submitted by him, judge A. Thiruneelaprasad granted him bail.
