Number of bank accounts of Jaya, Sasikala mushroomed: SC

Mushrooming of 50 bank accounts of late J Jayalalithaa and V K Sasikala between 1991 and 1995 was to utilise the transfer of their huge unaccounted money, the Supreme Court said today, giving credence to the trial court findings.
The apex court, which convicted Sasikala and two of her relatives in the disproportionate assets case, referred to the trial court findings and said it had "held the view that the respondents in the case in hand had failed to offer any satisfactory explanation with regard to the enormous unexplained credit/accumulations in their bank accounts".
A bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy said in its judgement that trial court had noted that at the commencement of the check period, there were "hardly 10 to 12 bank accounts standing in the names of Jayalalithaa and Sasikala, but thereafter 50 accounts mushroomed during the check period".

It said that deposits and withdrawals represented through different entries in the accounts suggest multiplication of transactions "stemming from the same corpus".
"The maze of financial exchanges in fragments involving different combinations, hint at the attempt to inflate individual and collective income of the respondents. The banking transactions, though resorted to for proclaiming genuineness thereof, having regard to the overall factual conspectus, do not appear to be real," the bench said.
It noted that about 50 banks accounts were opened in the names of accused persons and the companies.
"According to the Trial Court, the overall evidence as considered by it disclosed that the business activities in the names of Sasikala and her two relatives started only during the check period and that they did not invest any funds on their own for that purpose and in fact utilised these as a front to enable Jayalalithaa and Sasikala transfer huge unaccounted money through the bank accounts thereof," it said.

The apex court also referred to the findings of the trial court, which had said that the evidence on record "cumulatively substantiated that the returns, the balance sheet and the profit and loss accounts were framed and fashioned to offer an explanation to the otherwise titanic unexplained credits in their respective bank accounts".