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Former Union minister Muthiah's trial begins

With the examination of four witnesses, the trial of former Union minister Sedapatti R Muthiah and family members in the disproportionate wealth case commenced before Special Judge-1 S Sambandam in Madras Thursday.

The case relates to the amassing of wealth to the tune of Rs 4.57 million, disproportionate to his known sources of income, when Muthiah was the Tamil Nadu assembly speaker during the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam regime.

Besides Muthiah, others accused are wife Sakunthala, sons Arvazhagan and Manimaran, and daughter Malarvizhi.

All the five filed petitions seeking copies of the chargesheet in Tamil and the examination of the witnesses by de nova trial.

In their petition they contended that they found it difficult to follow the case as the chargesheet was in English and not in the court language, Tamil, and hence the law was not complied with.

Further the charges were vague and the annexes and allegations in the chargesheet misleading, the petitions said.

The judge posted further hearing for February 8.

UNI

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