Sasikala’s benami properties worth Rs 1,500 cr attached

Income Tax officials have attached assets worth Rs 1,500 crore allegedly purchased by jailed AIADMK leader V K Sasikala after demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes was announced by the Centre in November 2016.

Sources said the properties, including a mall in Chennai and a resort in neighbouring Puducherry, were attached under the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act as it is suspected that Sasikala, currently serving her four-year imprisonment at the Parapana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru, bought them and controlled them through others.

The sources claimed the nine properties that were attached recently were bought by Sasikala during the small window period from November 8, 2016 to December 31, 2016 to exchange the banned notes for new ones. Incidentally, this was the period her friend and former chief minister J Jayalalithaa spent 75 days in Apollo Hospitals from September 22 to December 5 till she breathed her last breath.

They claimed that Sasikala did not register the companies in her name and ensured that they remain in the names of respective owners. But, the sources said, the I-T raids conducted on premises owned by Sasikala family and at the rooms which were occupied by Sasikala in the palatial Poes Garden residence of the late chief minister led to recovery of these incriminating documents.

Sasikala has been informed about the development through jail officials, the sources said.