Car import case: VK Sasikala husband’s conviction upheld

Madras High Court on Friday confirmed the trial court’s conviction and sentence of jailed AIADMK leader VK Sasikala’s husband M Natarajan and three others for two years imprisonment in connection with a two-decade-old Lexus car import case.  

Dismissing Natarajan’s appeal petition, Justice G Jayachandran upheld the economic offences court verdict convicting all the four accused in 2010.

The case pertains to the import of Lexus luxury car in 1994 from the UK as a used car to evade import duty of Rs 1.6 crore. The CBI and ED have registered separate cases. According to the CBI, Natarajan his nephew V Bhaskaran, Yogesh and Sujaritha Sundararajan forged the original sale invoice by changing the vehicle’s manufacturing date to July 1993. They cleared the car under transfer of residence provision and thereby caused a loss of Rs 1.6 crore to the exchequer, it said.