The Hindu : SC reserves verdict in Jayalalithaa's assets case

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Thursday, Oct 16, 2003

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SC reserves verdict in Jayalalithaa's assets case

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI OCT. 15. The Supreme Court today reserved the verdict in the petitions filed by the DMK seeking transfer of two disproportionate assets cases against the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, and four others from a Chennai Special Court to a court outside Tamil Nadu.

A Bench, comprising Justice S. N. Variava and Justice H. K. Sema, reserved the judgment at the conclusion of arguments from counsel for the parties spread over two days. This is the second case involving Ms. Jayalalithaa where the Supreme Court has reserved the verdict, even as judgment in the TANSI case, which was reserved on September 26 last year, is awaited.

Besides Ms. Jayalalithaa, others accused in the case are N. Sasikala, her erstwhile foster son, V. N. Sudhakaran and Ilavarasi and the AIADMK MP, T. T.V. Dinakaran, is the accused in the other case. The court had on February 28 stayed all further proceedings in the two cases pending before a Chennai Special Court.

Appearing for the petitioner, K. Anbazhagan, senior counsel T. R. Andhyarujina refuted the allegation advanced on behalf of Ms. Jayalalithaa that the petitioner had suppressed material facts about the pendency of similar petitions before the Madras High Court. He said the relief sought in these petitions filed in January 2002 was entirely different and hence there was no need to refer them in the transfer petition filed before the apex court in February.

Counsel submitted that the events changed only after November 2002 when witness after witness turned hostile and the prosecution did not take any step to cross-examine them or declare them as hostile. As a result, 64 of the 76 prosecution witnesses who were recalled turned hostile.

If the trial was allowed to continue in Chennai in the "prevailing hostile atmosphere" where Ms. Jayalalithaa was wielding enormous powers, witnesses would not come forward to state the truth and it might be yet another `Best Bakery case' of Gujarat in which all the 21 accused were acquitted after 37 of the 43 witnesses turned hostile.

Since there was every possibility of miscarriage of justice, he prayed that both the cases be transferred to a court outside the State and the trial conducted by the CBI.

Appearing for Ms. Jayalalithaa, senior counsel K. K. Venugopal clarified that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister did not appear in person for questioning under Sec. 313 Cr. PC, due to ill-health and not due to security reasons as was submitted by him yesterday.

He said that when the trial was almost completed, it would be highly improper to transfer the two cases outside the State. If transferred, over 2,500 pages of the documents, which were in Tamil, had to be translated into English and it would cause hardship to 259 witnesses in the case who had to adduce fresh evidence.

Mr. Venugopal said the High Court should be allowed to pronounce its orders on the two petitions and the accused would have no objection if a new Public Prosecutor was appointed to conduct the trial as was done in the TANSI appeal.

Appearing for the Tamil Nadu Government, the Additional Solicitor-General, Altaf Ahmed, denied that there was pressure on the prosecution not to cross-examine the witnesses who turned hostile. At this juncture, the Bench grilled him for not cross-examining the prosecution witnesses who turned hostile.

This happened in the `Best Bakery case' also, the Bench observed and added that when contrary evidence was given by the prosecution witnesses after their recall, it was the duty of the Public Prosecutor to cross-examine them. Had the State not compromised on the interest of the prosecution, the Bench asked.

Mr. Ahmad then submitted that the State was prepared to re-examine the witnesses who had turned hostile but there was no need for transferring the cases outside the State.

Arvind Vinod Bobde, senior counsel appearing for Ms. Sasikala, Sudhakaran and Ilavarasi adopted the arguments of Mr. Venugopal but submitted that an outsider such as the petitioner had no locus standi to file the petition for transfer of the cases outside the State.

Ranga Ramanujam, appearing for Mr. Dinakaran, submitted that only the accused or the State could ask for transfer and not an outsider.

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