The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan, said, “All the questions of law are answered against Dinakaran and in favour of the Enforcement Directorate. The impugned order passed by the Foreign Exchange Regulation Appellate Board on May 5, 2000 is confirmed and the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal stands dismissed.” The two-decades old case had come into being after Dinakaran came under the scanner of ED officials after huge amounts of cash deposits were made into his bank accounts during the 1991-96 Jayalalithaa regime. The ED had slapped a Rs 31-crore penalty in February 1998 on Dinakaran. It was subsequently scaled down to Rs 28 crore by the FERA Appellate Board. The charge against him was that he had acquired foreign exchange totaling $10.5 million from persons other than authorised dealers and thereby contravening Section 8(1) of FERA.
