TTV Dhinakaran refuses to give voice sample

New Delhi: AIADMK (Amma) faction leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran on Saturday refused to give consent in a Delhi court for giving voice sample to the police for their investigation in the Election Commission bribery case.

Mr Dhinakaran was produced before the court from the Tihar jail in pursuance to a production warrant that was issued on Friday by special judge Poonam Chaudhry on a plea by the crime branch of Delhi police, seeking his consent for a voice sample. He was produced before Ms Chaudhry who marked the case to a magistrate’s court, where he declined to give consent. Metropolitan magistrate Abhilash Malhotra recorded the statement of Mr Dhinakaran and forwarded it to the special judge. Mr Dhinakaran was arrested on the night of April 25, after four days of questioning for allegedly attempting to bribe unidentified EC officials to get the undivided AIADMK’s “two leaves” election symbol. 

His faction had hoped to obtain the symbol for the bypoll to the R K Nagar Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu, which was later on cancelled by the EC after the alleged irregularities were reported in the media.

The bypoll was necessitated following the death of Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa who was elected from the constituency. The EC had frozen the AIADMK’s symbol after two factions of the party, one led by Mr Dhinakaran’s aunt Ms Sasikala, and the other by former chief minister O. Panneerselvam staked a claim to it.

Special judge Chaudhry heard arguments on the bail application of alleged middleman Sukesh Chandrashekar, who was arrested on April 16, and reserved the order for May 22. Mr Chandrashekar’s counsel sought bail on the ground that his client has been falsely implicated and made a scapegoat in the case and that he is ready to join the probe.

The police opposed the bail plea, saying the allegations were grave and they have to make more arrests. The court also extended by two days the police custody of suspected hawala operator Lalit Kumar alias Babu Bhai, who was arrested on May 18.

The police has alleged that he was the one who had handed over `1 crore through hawala transaction to an unidentified person who had given the amount to Mr Chandrashekar to bribe EC officials. The police had earlier sought permission to obtain the consent of Mr Dhinakaran and Mr Chandrashekar to compare their voice samples with those contained in a CD recovered during the investigation. While Dhinakaran had raised objection on maintainability of the police plea, Chandrashekar had refused to give his consent for a voice sample.

Dhinakaran, his close aide Mallikarjuna, Chandrashekar and suspected hawala operator Nathu Singh, another accused in the case, are lodged in judicial custody till May 29.

Dhinakaran has been accused of allegedly arranging the money from undisclosed sources and getting it transferred from Chennai to Delhi through illegal channels.

Mallikarjuna was arrested for allegedly facilitating a Rs 50-crore deal between Dhinakaran and Chandrashekar.