A Special Court in Chennai on Monday convicted M Natarajan, husband of Ms Sasikala, who is close aide of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for two years Rigorous Imprisonment(RI) in a Lexus car import case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI).
The Court which specially tries cases filed by CBI also convicted Natrajan’s nephpew V Bhaskaran, Yogesh Balakrishnan and the then Indian Bank Abhiramapuram Branch Manager Ms Sucharita Sundararajan.
Delivering the judgment, CBI court special judge Raveendran convicted all the four accused on 18 counts and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on each count.
While Yogesh Balakrishnan facilitated the shipment of the car to India, Ms Sucharita was convicted for issuing false certificate.
According to the prosecution Mr Natarajan and others imported a luxury car and in order to claim import duty benefits, forged documents for clearing the car as a used vehicle.
The CBI registered the case against Natarajan, Bhaskaran, Sucharita, Yogesh Balakrishnan and his father Balakrishnan, for importing a Toyota Lexus from the UK and declaring it as a used vehicle. By declaring the new car as an old one, and preparing/falsifying documents to support the claim, the accused have circumvented the Customs rules and caused a loss to the tune of several lakhs.
The court accepted the petition filed by the convicts and suspended the sentence for one month and thus released them on bail, enabling them to appeal in the Madras High Court against their sentence and obtain regular bail.
All the four individually paid Rs one lack and eighty thousand fine imposed by the court.
- Asian Tribune -
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