Nearly four years after the CBI registered an FIR and arrested businessman J. Sekar Reddy and his associates in Chennai in the sensational cash seizure case, immediately after demonetisation, the CBI informed the trial court that there are “no incriminating evidence against the accused.” Following this, the additional sessions judge S. Jawahar allowed the CBI to close the FIRs based on the report filed by the investigating agency.
Reddy had allegedly caused a loss of Rs 247.13 crore to the government by illegally converting demonetised currencies in 2016.
THE WEEK was the first to disclose incriminating pages from Sekar Reddy's secret diary which had details of payments made to several VIPs. THE WEEK also exposed the businessman’s links to AIADMK bribing the voters, during the 2016 general elections in Tamil Nadu. Reddy had denied the reports saying he “never had the habit of maintaining a diary.” With regard to the cash for votes issue and the bribery allegations, Reddy the told THE WEEK that the Income Tax department had not seized any incriminating material from properties connected to him.
The additional sessions court, in its six-page order, said “On conclusion of evidence, CBI has filed chargesheet under Section 173(2) of the CrPC, recommending closure of the case for lack of insufficient evidence along with the statements of witnesses recorded during the course of investigation.” The court has also ordered return of all documents, material and vehicles seized during the investigation, saying the case was registered on “source of information” and that there is “no defacto complainant.”
“Evidences and witness fall short. The court pursued all the relevant records, including the FIR, statement recorded under Section 161 of CrPC, the documents collected during investigation by the investigating officer and the final report,” the court said in its order.
The court also added that there was no efficient evidence to prosecute Sekar Reddy and his associates, M. Premkumar, K. Srinivasulu, K. Rethinam, S. Ramachandran and S. Parasmal Lodha, based on the statements of 170 witnesses and 879 documents collected during the course of investigation.
“The evidence on record is not adequate to launch prosecutable case against the accused person beyond reasonable doubt to establish that they fraudulently converted the unauthorised cash held by them in old currency notes into new high denomination notes, there by depriving the public, in enforcing their right and thus the accused had in conspiracy with unknown bank officials and public servants cheated the government of India,” the court said.
The court’s order also said that the oral and documentary evidence is not substantial to prosecute the accused. “As per the oral and documentary evidence, the allegations in the FIRs saying the accused persons have caused wrongful loss to the government to the tune of Rs. 247 crore and obtaining corresponding wrongful gain to themselves is not substantiated with prosecutable evidence,” the court said.
With this, the sensational case against Reddy and his close associates has come to a close. Incidentally, Reddy is also a member of the Thirumala Thirupathi Devasthanams (TTD).
