Chennai: The AIADMK deputy general secretary and party candidate for the RK Nagar Assembly by-poll, TTV Dhinakaran, suffered a seatback on Monday with the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (EO-II) Court, Egmore at Allikulam dismissing his petition seeking adjournment of the trial proceedings in a Fera case registered against him till the by-election on April 12. This could mean that the court could call him anytime for appearance during its day-to-day proceedings, besides which his rival campaigners might seek to drag the court proceedings on to the RK Nagar streets, say observers.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had initiated proceedings against TTV under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (Fera) following remittance of huge sums of money into his bank accounts between 1991 and 1995, when J.Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister. Along with his aunt and AIADMK’s present general secretary VK Sasikala, relative Baskaran and some others, TTV was accused of money laundering and import of machines for erstwhile Super Duper TV on behalf of Dipper Investment.
In 1996, ED had registered seven cases against Sasikala, Dhinakaran and others. The Economic Offences Court, Egmore in May 2015 discharged Sasikala from a FERA case and Dhinakaran from two similar cases. However, the court had declined to discharge her from three other FERA cases.
Challenging this, ED filed an appeal before the Madras high court, stating that a company had availed itself of a loan of Rs 3 crore from a nationalised bank, Chennai, based on the security of a deposit by an NRI and Sasikala had allegedly drawn Rs 2.20 crore from the amount to buy a part of the holdings in Kodanad Tea Estate in 1995.
In February this year, Justice G. Chokalingam of the Madras HC set aside the trial court order discharging Sasikala, Dhinakaran from the FERA cases.
The judge reversed the trial court order in a total of six ED cases including a case against Sasikala, two cases against Dhinakaran.
