The Hindu : New Delhi News : Court reserves verdict on SLP filed in Lexus car import case

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Thursday, Apr 24, 2008
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Court reserves verdict on SLP filed in Lexus car import case

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on a special leave petition filed by M. Natarajan (husband of Sasikala, close aide of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa) challenging a Madras High Court order dismissing his revision petition against the trial court’s order declining to discharge him from the Lexus car import case.

In 2005, the Supreme Court had restrained the Principal Judge, CBI Special Court, Chennai, from pronouncing judgment in the case. On Wednesday, a Bench of Justice P.P. Naolekar and Justice V.S. Sirpurkar reserved verdict at the conclusion of arguments from senior counsel K. Subramanian for the petitioner and Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh for the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. Subramanian submitted that the Supreme Court, in the Hiralals case, had held that if the assessee had opted to avail of the benefit of the Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme (KVSS), he obtained immediate immunity from any proceeding under any law in force. Hence the present proceedings ought to have been quashed.

“Political vendetta”

He argued it was a political vendetta to harass the petitioner. Importers had been allowed to avail of the exemption and Mr. Natarajan alone could not be prosecuted.

The whole object of the immunity granted under the KVSS would be defeated if the petitioner alone was prosecuted.

In his SLP, Mr. Natarajan stated that in the original FIR dated April 22, 1998, three Customs Officers were accused of clearing a new Lexus car under the scheme of transfer of residence of one of the accused, Yogesh Balakrishnan, and customs duty was required to be paid out of foreign remittance account.

The petitioner, who was Director of Tamilarasi Publication Pvt Ltd, and V. Bhaskaran, authorised signatory of the company to operate the account with Indian Bank, issued a foreign inward remittance certificate from the current account of the publications. This certificate was utilised by S. Balakrishnan and his son Yogesh for getting customs clearance for the imported car. He said the importer Balakrishnan had availed of the Kar Vivad Samadan Scheme, 1998 and paid Rs.2,84,325. Thereby all criminal liability had been wiped off.

Mr. Vikas Singh said the immunity would be available only for the importer and not for others who had submitted a forged document for availing of the benefit.

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