TTV Dhinakaran appears before court in Fera case

Chennai: The deputy general secretary of ruling AIADMK and party candidate for the RK Nagar Assembly by-poll, TTV Dhinakaran appeared before the Egmore court on Friday in connection with a Fera case registered against him nearly two decades ago by enforcement directorate.

When the matter came up before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) (EO-II) S. Malarmathy, Dhinakaran appeared and submitted that he would file an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the verdict of Madras high court which dismissed the trial court order discharging him from the Fera case.

Enforcement Directorate (ED) has initiated proceedings based on huge sums of money remittance into the bank accounts of Dhinakaran under Fera in 7 cases in the year 1996. Dhinakaran, VK Sasikala and a relative Baskaran along with a few others were accused of the same charges and import of machinery for erstwhile Super Duper TV on behalf of Dipper Investment.

The Economic Offences Court–I, 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, based on the loan availed by VK Sasikala against an FD of an NRI to buy her share of the Kodanad Estate in 1995.

In February this year, Madras high court had set aside the order of trial court discharging Sasikala, Dhinakaran from the case. The judge reversed the trial court order in a total of six ED cases, including a case against Sasikalaa, two cases against Dhinakaran and three against JJ TV.

The judge has directed the counsel to file the appeal before March 22 and submit the details. The ACMM has also informed the counsel that if the appeal is not filed by March 22, she would take the matter on file and proceedings would be commenced from March 22. The ACMM has also directed Dhinakaran to be present on March 22.