A special court in Bengaluru has declared Ramachandran Viswanathan, founder-CEO of Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd., as Fugitive Economic Offender (FEO) under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, as he failed to turn up to face the criminal proceeding pending before the court under the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act, 2002.
The court also ordered for confiscating of the seized assets, in the form of amounts lying in various bank accounts in India, mutual funds and shares, the value of which is around ₹82.8 core, in favour of the Central government.
K.L. Ashok, Principal Special Judge for CBI cases and judge of XXI Additional City Civil and Sessions Court, passed the order on June 8 while allowing the application filed in May 2022 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for declaring him as FEO.
