FERA case: V K Sasikala directed to appear in court on May 13

Bengaluru: The Chennai court has ordered the production of V K Sasikala, serving sentence in a corruption case in a Bengaluru prison, before it on May 13 for questioning her in a decades-old case of alleged Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) violation.

Economic Offences Court judge S Malarmathi, in her order passed, has directed the superintendent of the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail here to produce Sasikala for questioning by the court under section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc).

The judge gave the order following the completion of cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses on April 29.

The case registered in 1996 relates to the alleged payments made by Sasikala, a close aide of late Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa, and co-accused Bhaskaran in violation of FERA for the purchase of a transponder facility and uplinking charges for the now-defunct JJ TV channel.

The Enforcement Directorate booked Sasikala in 1996 on charges of FERA violations and the case has been dragging on since then. A total of six related cases are before the trial court.

Last year, the Madras High Court ordered that the trial in the case be completed in four months, following which the process began on February 12 at the economic offences court.

Sasikala is serving a four-year jail term awarded to her in a disproportionate assets case.