Jayalalitha named prime accused in another corruption case
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha, former ministers
V R Nedunchezhiyan, S Kannappan and five bureaucrats were among
the 11 people chargesheeted in the Rs 70 million coal import scam
on Wednesday, April 2.
The state police's Criminal Investigation Department, which took
up the case on a complaint filed by Janata Party President Dr
Subramaniam Swamy, filed the 17-page chargesheet before the principal
sessions court. The statements of witnesses and documents ran
over 1,000 pages.
Judge A Ramamurthy, however, kept the chargesheet in abeyance
as the investigating agency is yet to obtain permission from the
federal government to prosecute Indian Administrative Services
officers including former chief secretaries T V Venkataraman and
N Haribhaskar, former industries secretary R Ramachandran and
former finance secretary N Narayanan.
This is the third case in which a chargesheet has been filed by
the police, citing Jayalalitha as the prime accused. The chargesheet
in the Tansi land deal case was filed on November 15 and the chargesheet
in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case was filed on January 18 but was
taken cognisance of only on April 1after the investigating agency
filed papers relating to permission given by the federal government
to prosecute the IAS officers involved in that case.
The investigating agency told the court that the chargesheet related
to the coal-10 contract involving wrongful loss to the government
to the tune of Rs 65.7 million. Investigations pertaining to two
other contracts for coal-16 and coal-18 are yet to be completed.
As it sought time to file papers relating to the federal government's
sanction to prosecute the IAS officers, the judge posted the case
for April 30.
Special Public Prosecutor P Venkatasamy, who filed the chargesheet
on behalf of the CID, told reporters that the agency would soon
move the court to obtain a letter-rogatory to visit Australia,
Indonesia and Singapore to conduct further investigations.
The accused were charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy
to gain pecuniary advantage in the import of coal between February
1992 and October 1993 and thereby committed offences under sections
120 (b) read with 409 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 13(2),
13 (1) (c) of the prevention of corruption act.
UNI
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