FERA case: Charges filed against Sasikala

She was produced before the court through video-conferencing from the Parapana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru, where she has been lodged following her conviction in the disproportionate assets case.

Magistrate S Malarmathi framed the charges against Sasikala in two more cases and adjourned the case to February 12 for cross-examination of the witnesses by her counsel.

When the judge queried as to whether she agreed with the charges levelled against her, Sasikala replied in the negative.

Earlier, the Court had framed the charges in two cases on December 21, during which also she denied the charges.

The charges were framed after the Madras High Court had on December 10, 2018 quashed the warrant issued by the ACMM court for production of Sasikala for framing of charges on December 13.

Judge N Anand Venkatesh had quashed the warrant and said she could be produced throughvideo-conferencing from the Parappana Agrahara prison.

The Judge also directed the EOW court to complete the case within four months.

The ED had alleged that as chairperson-cum-director of JJ TV Private Limited between 1991 and 1996, Sasikala authorised the company’s Managing Director Bhaskaran to negotiate and enter into a contract with any foreign supplier of a transponder facility for launching Tamil satellite channel JJ TV.

In pursuit of this, payments were made to firms in United States and Singapore in dollars for hiring transponders and uplinking facilities for the JJ TV without the permission of the RBI.

Sasikala and her nephew V Bhaskaran were cited as accused in these cases. On November 30, Malarmathi, who is also in charge of ACMM court, found that the accused had not signed the papers relating to framing of charges.

She also pointed out that Sasikala did not appear before the court as directed earlier citing health reasons, following which the warrant was issued for her production before the court, which was quashed by the High Court and subsequently produced through video-conferencing on Monday for framing of charges.