Tamil Nadu has been going through a political crisis over the past few days with the very public fallout between AIADMK General Secretary Sasikala Natarajan and outgoing Chief Minister O Panneerselvam. The party has been facing a split with both sides having presented their side of the argument before Governor C Vidyasagar Rao.
Rao is perhaps waiting for the Supreme Court to announce its verdict in the disproportionate assets (DA) case against him in which Sasikala is also an accused. The apex court is likely to pass a judgement in the matter on Tuesday.
Let's take a look at the three legal cases against Sasikala:
Disproportionate Assets case
On May 11, 2015, the Karnataka High Court had declared Sasikala not guilty in the disproportionate assets case. Late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, J Elavarasi and VN Sudhakaran were also acquitted.
However, the Karnataka government filed appeals against the acquittal of all the accused in the matter following which a bench led by Justics Amitava ROy reserved them for judgement in June 2016 after arguments that lasted 20 days, the Hindu reported.
The hearing, which commenced on February 23 last year, had asked Jayalalithaa and all the other accused in the DA case to respond in the matter before taking a break to examine the litigation records of almost two decades.
During the hearings, the bench had also implied that only the possession of the DA to the known source of income could not be considered as corruption unless it is an illegal source.
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) case
Last week, the Madras High Court declined to dismiss the three cases by the against Sasikala that were filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 1995 and 1996, accusing her of violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1973.
Sasikala had allegedly made payments to foreign firms in the US and Singapore to hire transponders and uplink facilities for J Jay TV. J Jay TV is the predecessor of Jaya TV and was telecast earlier under the logo of JJ TV. Sasikala was the chairperson of J Jaya TV.
Illegal Foreign Exchange Act case
Sasikala has also been accused of acquiring illegal foreign exchange through a source in Malaysia and for having used that money to buy the Kodanad Tea Estate in the Nilgiris, along with her sister-in-law J Elavarasi.
The additional chief metropolitan magistrate in Egmore had discharged her from the case in May 2015 but the High Court ordered her to face trial following a criminal revision petition filed by the ED.
