A Division Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved its orders on a batch of writ appeals filed by alleged benamidars of AIADMK’s former interim general secretary, V.K. Sasikala, challenging the provisional attachment of their shopping malls, paper mills, commercial complexes and resorts, which were allegedly purchased by her on payment of ₹1,674.50 crore in demonetised currency notes in November and December 2016.
Justices R. Mahadevan and J. Sathya Narayana Prasad deferred their verdict after hearing arguments advanced by advocates R. Sivaraman and N.V. Balaji representing the appellants and Special Public Prosecutor M. Sheela for the Income Tax department. The judges indicated that they might allow the adjudicating authority, under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act of 1988, to proceed with the inquiry and complete it within a time frame.
They also said the appellants would be afforded full opportunity of hearing before the adjudicating authority and they could also cross-examine the witnesses. Earlier, Mr. Sivaraman contended that the initiating authority under the Act itself ought to have allowed the appellants to cross-examine the witnesses, since the law empowers the officer to revoke provisional attachment order if he/she was convinced that there were no materials.
