Madras HC reserves order on Dhinakaran plea in FERA case

The Madras High Court today reserved orders on a criminal revision plea moved by Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam leader TTV Dinakaran against a lower court order refusing to issue copies of certain documents sought by him in a FERA violation case.

Justice M V Muralidaran had on March 7 passed an interim order on the criminal revision plea moved by Dhinakaran challenging the order of the additional chief metropolitan magistrate (Economic Offences-II), Chennai.

When the matter came up today, the judge, after hearing the arguments of Additional Solicitor General G Rajagopalan on behalf of the Enforcement Directorate and Dhinakaran's counsel B Kumar, reserved his orders and said the interim stay will continue till orders are pronounced in the case.

The ASG, apart from referring to certain sections of the CrPc, submitted that the petitioner is filling vexatious petitions at every stage of proceedings only to drag the case.

He further submitted that the court has to take into consideration the seriousness of the case.

In civil proceedings on the same issue, the court had directed him to pay penalty for FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act) violation.

Now, criminal proceedings are under trial which is dragged by filing various petitions.

On his part, Dhinakaran's counsel submitted that the reasons for not furnishing the documents have to be recorded and Article 21 of the Constitution is violated.

The case pertains to the allegation that Dhinakaran had acquired USD 1,04,93,313 in foreign exchange without obtaining prior permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and deposited it in the current account of Dipper Investments Limited, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and having an account with Barclays Bank, Sutton, United Kingdom.

The Enforcement Directorate filed a counter seeking to vacate the interim stay granted by the High Court in FERA cases that were filed against Dhinakaran.

The ED in its counter affidavit stated that with a view to drag the hearing of the two-decade-old cases under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, the petitions had been filed by Dhinakaran.

It submitted that the documents demanded by the accused like case diary cannot be provided to him as there is a bar in sharing such documents under the CrPC.

This apart, FERA prohibits disclosure of any document, information, or intelligence of the department which were kept highly confidential and protected. Hence, such documents also cannot be provided, it said.

Pointing out that the accused has also sought production of communication between the high commissions of India and the ED, the affidavit read "the magistrate was right in rejecting the demand as those are official communications between government departments and the accused has failed to establish the need to call for such documents".

Referring to the request to produce the correspondence between the ED and the DVAC regarding the case against former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, the ED said the late leader is neither an accused nor a witness in the case and there is no necessity to produce such documents.