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JJ FERA case to go to trial shortly

The decks have been cleared for trial in the case relating to the FERA violation to the tune of US $ 680,000 by the defunct JJ TV for providing uplinking facilities and hiring transponder facilities. Former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha's close associate Sasikala Natarajan was chairperson and director of the television network.

Justice S M Siddick of the Madras high court dismissed a revision petition filed by V Bhaskaran, managing director of JJ TV, seeking a direction to the Enforcement Directorate to file a supplementary chargesheet on the basis of further investigation. The judge also vacated the stay granted in the case by the high court on October 20 last.

Earlier, the additional chief metropolitan magistrate of the economic offences court-I, had dismissed the petition filed by Bhaskaran and posted the case for trial on October 14 last. Against this, Bhaskaran preferred the present revision petition, and the high court had stayed the trial on October 20 last.

Meanwhile, the enforcement officer filed a petition for vacating the stay.

In his petition, Bhaskaran said during the course of investigation, the ED obtained a letter rogatory and the court granted permission for continuing further investigation. In response, the court at Indiana, USA, sent several documents pertaining to the case to the EO court, based on which the department recorded certain statements from Sasikala.

Dismissing the petition, the judge said Bhaskaran has no personal knowledge about the letter rogatory sent in this case and the documents received from the US and about further investigation done by the department. Therefore, on the basis of his presumption, inference and surmise, no direction could be issued to the ED to file a supplementary chargesheet, the judge added.

The judge said from perusing the records, it was clear that no requisition was made by the investigating officer to issue a letter rogatory. Therefore, there was no basis in Bhaskaran's contention that such a letter was issued. It might be that the records from other courts or from a foreign country in pursuance of letter rogatoryissued in another case may be available with the investigating officer or with the ED, but that could not be a ground to issue a direction to the ED to file a supplementary chargesheet in the case, the judge added.

The judge rejected Bhaskaran's contention that there was defective cognisance in the case.

The judge held that Bhaskaran was not entitled to the relief of directing the ED to file supplementary chargesheet in pursuance of further investigation, or to adjourn the trial till the procedures were complied with.

The judge said his petition was devoid of merit.

UNI

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