Sushmita Sen appears in court in car import case

Actress Sushmita Sen today appeared before a special court at Egmore on the orders of the Madras High Court in connection with the import of a luxury car in alleged violation of provisions of foreign trade policy.

The high court had on July 20 stayed the warrant issued by the lower court here against Sen. It had also directed her to appear before the trial court without fail today.

The case was registered by the Customs Department and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence after it found that the luxury vehicle was imported by misusing the provisions of Transfer of Residence of the Exim policy. The investigators said that a person named Haren Choksey had sold a luxury car, imported by another named Vasu Pandari Thamala, to Sen.

Later, it was found that the car was imported by alleged mis-declaration of the chassis number, year of manufacture and the value. Though the car was a 2004 model, it was declared as manufactured in 1998 to evade customs duties. On January 24, 2006, the DRI had seized the vehicle under provisions of the Customs Act, following which Sen voluntarily deposited Rs 20.31 lakh as differential customs duty.

The adjudication authority then slapped a penalty of Rs 20 lakh on Thamala and Rs 10 lakh on Choksey in 2008. As the car was cleared by Chennai port customs authority, a case was registered against Choksey and Thamala for evasion of customs duty at the Egmore economic offences court here and Sen was asked to appear to provide evidence against the duo.

As Sen failed to appear for hearing to provide evidence in the court in June, the magistrate had issued a warrant against Sen which was challenged by her. According to the high court orders, she appeared before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Zakir Hussain, today.

She was cross examined by the counsel for the accused in the above case for more than an hour. After that, the judge adjourned the case to September 26.

-PTI