The Hindu : Front Page : Wealth cases: Supreme Court rejects Jayalalithaa's plea

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Wednesday, Jan 19, 2005

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Wealth cases: Supreme Court rejects Jayalalithaa's plea

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, JAN. 18. A five-member Bench of the Supreme Court today dismissed the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa's ``curative petition'' seeking a direction to recall the earlier orders shifting the two wealth cases against her and four others from a Chennai court to a Bangalore court.

While praying for dismissal of the transfer petition (after the orders were recalled) filed by the DMK general secretary, K. Anbazhagan, Ms. Jayalalithaa prayed for a stay of all further proceedings before the Bangalore Special Court till the apex court disposed of her curative petition.

With the court rejecting her plea, the Special Court in Bangalore can now go ahead with the trial. The other accused in the two cases are: Sasikala, a close aide of Ms. Jayalalithaa; J. Ilavarasi, V. N. Sudhakaran and T.T.V. Dinakaran.

The Bench, comprising Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, Justice N. Santosh Hegde, Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, Justice S.N. Variava and Justice H.K. Sema, dismissed the petition observing that no case had been made out by the petitioner within the parameters laid down by the apex court for entertaining a curative petition.

On a petition from Mr. Anbazhagan, the Supreme Court on November 18, 2003, directed the transfer of the two cases of disproportionate assets — to the tune of over Rs. 66 crores — to a Bangalore special court. However, Ms. Jayalalithaa filed an application seeking modification of the order and it was dismissed on February 17, 2004. Again, she filed a petition seeking review of the order and this was also dismissed on April 28, 2004.

In August last that the apex court directed the Chennai special court to hand over records and documents to the special court in Bangalore. After the records were handed over, the process of translation of the documents has been in progress. After a review petition is dismissed, five Judges decide a curative petition in the seniormost Judge's chamber.

In her petition, Ms. Jayalalithaa said the transfer of the cases to Bangalore was unjustified and it would result in grave miscarriage of justice. The allegations made by Mr. Anbazhagan were against the Public Prosecutor for not discharging his duties since as many as 76 witnesses were recalled and examined and 64 of them turned hostile. No effort was made by the Public Prosecutor to treat them as hostile. She said there was not a single allegation against the special judge who was conducting the trial.

Further, transferring the case from one State to another, particularly when most of the documents and depositions running to over 2,500 pages were in Tamil and the 64 witnesses would be deposing before a special judge who did not know Tamil would be a serious miscarriage of justice.

It must be noted that the special judge, Rajamanickam, who was conducting the trial in Chennai had retired and a new special judge had been appointed in his place. In such a situation, the ends of justice would be fully met if the court appointed a new Public Prosecutor and allow the trial to be conducted in Chennai itself.

Ms. Jayalalithaa alleged that Mr. Anbazhagan resorted to a gross abuse of the process of the court that failure to recall the earlier judgments would result in perpetuation of irremediable injustice.

Since the points raised by her in the curative petition required to be argued at length, she might be granted oral hearing; otherwise grave prejudice would be caused to her, Ms. Jayalalithaa said and prayed for an interim stay of all further proceedings pending disposal of the petition.

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