Chennai,jul 21:
Madras high court has dismissed petitions filed by former Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo late J.Jayalalithaa and her close aide, VK Sasikala, now incarcerated at prison in Bengaluru in disproportionate asset case, challenging pending trial before a trial court in connection with the Income Tax department as infructuous.
Dismissing four criminal original petitions on Friday Justice M. Nirmal Kumar said “On a perusal of the petitions, it is seen that Special Public Prosecutor of the Income Tax Department had filed a petition to withdraw the prosecution against the petitioners and given consent to withdraw the prosecution. The judge said the SPP filed a communication of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Judicial and Prosecution), Chennai addressed to the Commissioner of Income Tax, Central-II, Chennai, concurring the same. Recording the submission, the Addi-tional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court (Economic Offences-I), Egmore, Chennai, had ordered that the proceedings in the cases are ordered to be withdrawn. In view of the above, the prayer in this Criminal Original Petitions becomes in fructuous. Hence, this Criminal Original Petitions dismissed as in fructuous.”
The department initiated criminal proceedings against Jayalalithaa and Sasikala for allegedly not filing returns in their individual capacity for the assessment year 1993-94 and against Sasi Enterprises, represented by its partners, Jaya and Sasikala, for allegedly not filing returns for the assessment years 1991-92 and 1992-93.
Challenging the proceedings, they had filed petitions in Madras High court and Supreme Court. In January 2015 the ACMM had passed the order after the IT Department agreed to withdraw the complaints as offences had been compounded by Director General of Income Tax (Investigation) Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on December 26. 2014.
