Sasi fails to appear via video conferencing in court

Since the necessary papers did not reach her on time, she was now asked to appear before the ACMM on May 28 from Parapanna Agrahara prison in Bengaluru where she has been lodged after her conviction in the DA case.

However, Sasikala’s relative V Bhaskaran, who was also cited as the accused in the case, appeared before the Court on Monday.

It may be recalled that on a petition filed by her, the Madras High Court had on Thursday last permitted her to be questioned through video conferencing, while setting aside the April 29 order of ACMM directing the Superintendent of the Central Prison in Bengaluru to produce Sasikala before the court on May 13 for questioning in FERA case.

Setting aside the order, Justice N Anand Venkatesh accepted a plea made by G Hema, Special Public Prosecutor for Enforcement Directorate, that the answers recorded by the Magistrate might be sent to the prison for obtaining her signatures.

Sasikala’s counsel argued that she was facing four economic offence cases registered by the ED between 1996 and 2001. One of those cases booked in 1998 was related to purchase of equipment from a foreign supplier for the now-defunct JJ TV, allegedly without RBI’s approval.

The ED had alleged that Sasikala had 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 dollars for hiring transponders and uplinking facilities for the JJ TV without the permission of the RBI. 

On May 4, 2017, the ACMM passed an order permitting the accused to appear through video conferencing for framing of charges and also for questioning on the basis of the chief examination of four prosecution witnesses.

She had appeared through video-conferencing on June 21, 2017, when she was questioned and charges were framed against her.

Subsequently charges were framed against her in two other cases on January 28 this year via video conferencing from Bengaluru.

However, a new presiding officer who took charge of the ACMM court recently, found that the answers recorded by the court during the questioning on June 21, 2017, had not been countersigned by the accused just because the entire proceedings took place through video conferencing.

He felt that it was not proper to let the answers remain on paper without her signatures. Hence he ordered that Sasikala should be produced in person on May 13 for examination under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.