High Court to give its verdict in Jayalalithaa’s illegal assests case on Monday

Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa

The Karnataka high court will pronounce it judgment in appeals filed by former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and three of her associates against their conviction and jail term in an illegal assets case on Monday, May 11.

The Karnataka high court which is on vacation listed the Jayalalithaa case for judgment on Monday morning in a cause list put out Friday night.

A single judge of the High Court Justice C R Kumaraswamy had on March 11 reserved his judgment in the appeal by Jayalalithaa against her September 27, 2014 conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 by a special court that conducted the trial of the case after it was transferred to Karnataka in 2003 by the Supreme Court.

The special court found Jayalalithaa guilty of accumulating Rs 53.64 crore of illegal assets between 1991-96 during her first of three tenures as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. The court sentenced her to four years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 100 crore. Jayalalalithaa was forced to step down as the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister following the conviction in September 2014.

Jayalalithaa was in prison for nearly 20 days before being released on bail on October 17. The former Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK supremo is looking at having her conviction overturned in order to make a come back ahead of the Tamil Nadu elections scheduled in 2016.

Three associates of Jayalalithaa V K Sasikala, V N Sudhakaran and J Illavarasi who were also sentenced to four year prison terms along with Jayalalithaa will also receive a verdict on their separate appeals from the Karnataka high court on Monday. The associates were asked by the trial court to pay a penalty of Rs 10 crore each to avoid facing an additional year in prison.

The Supreme Court on April 27 this year had ruled that the appointment of a special public prosecutor Bhavani Singh by the Tamil Nadu government to prosecute the case against Jayalalithaa was bad in law. The Karnataka government who were asked to prosecute the case by the Supreme Curt had subsequently presented written arguments through senior advocate B V Acharya.

The new SPP in his arguments had told the court that the entire proceedings in the appeals filed by Jayalalithaa and her three associates were “vitiated for the simple reason that there was no public prosecutor appointed by the state of Karnataka” during the appeals by Jayalalithaa and others.

Source:: Indian Express