A special court in Bengaluru has declared Ramachandran Viswanathan, founder-CEO of Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd., as Fugitive Economic Offender (FEO) under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, as he failed to turn up to face the criminal proceeding pending before the court under the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act, 2002.
The court also ordered for confiscating of the seized assets, in the form of amounts lying in various bank accounts in India, mutual funds and shares, the value of which is around ₹82.8 core, in favour of the Central government.
K.L. Ashok, Principal Special Judge for CBI cases and judge of XXI Additional City Civil and Sessions Court, passed the order on June 8 while allowing the application filed in May 2022 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for declaring him as FEO.
The declaration has been made under Section Sections 4, 10 and 12 of the FEO Act as Mr. Viswanathan, who is residing in the United States of America (USA) failed to appear before the special court even after effective service of the notice on him in the USA through the proper officials.
The special court had on September 17, 2022, issued a Letter of Request to serve the notice of proceedings initiated under the FEO Act on him in the USA through the proper channel, and the Ministry of External Affairs reported to the court that the notice was served on him in the USA on December 12, 2022.
The procedure under FEO Act stipulates that if the accused person, on service of notice, appears in person before the court, then proceedings will terminate. If the person does not appear in person but is represented by his counsel, then the special court may allow the counsel a week to file a reply; and proceedings would be conducted to decide whether the person is FEO or not. However, if the person does not appear in person or through his counsel at the stipulated time, the special court would proceed with hearing the application for a declaration as FEO; and after hearing the application, the special court may declare the accused person an FEO.
Devas and its top executives were accused of violating Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and PML Act on the alleged multi-crore scam in the company’s deal with Antrix Corporation Ltd, a commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, of securing S-band satellite spectrum for providing multimedia service.. It has been alleged that Devas had received ₹578 crore in violation of FEMA and proceedings of the crime was used by the company and its top executives.
