Chennai sources have stated that the AIADMK (Amma) candidate for the upcoming bypoll in the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly constituency, T.T.V. Dhinakaran, on Friday did not attend court proceedings in a case of violation of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) registered against him by the Enforcement Directorate 21 years ago. He stated that he was busy with the byelection. Instead, his counsel filed a petition to adjourn the case until the election was over, irking the additional chief metropolitan magistrate S. Malarmathy.

Mr. Dhinakaran has been charged with illegally obtaining $1,04,93,313 in foreign exchange and depositing it in the current account of Dipper Investments Ltd., a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with Barclays Bank, Sutton, United Kingdom. Recently, the Madras High Court upheld a penalty of 28 crore imposed on him by the FERA Board. As he failed to pay the fine, the Enforcement Directorate initiated criminal proceedings against him in the ACMM-Economic Offences-II court here.

Earlier on March 17, Ms. Malarmathy had directed Mr. Dhinakaran to appear before her on March 22. She then adjourned the case to Friday. However, on Friday, Mr. Dhinakaran did not turn up and his advocates filed petitions seeking to dispense with his personal appearance and to adjourn the trial until the byelection is over.

Meanwhile when rejecting this, the ACMM ordered his advocates to begin arguments in the case. But they sought to adjourn the matter citing that senior counsels were pre-occupied with the election work. Ms. Malarmathy, however, had asked the senior advocates to be present later in the day at 3.30 p.m. and to advance arguments on the petitions.
But the same group of advocates who appeared in the morning returned and prayed her to adjourn the case.