By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal - Indian Corruption: Karnataka High Court adjourns
Jayalalithaa's plea for bail
On
September 27, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was sentenced by
special court in Bangalore investigating illegal s asset
case of Jayalalithaa to serve four years in jail and asked to pay a fine Rs.100
crores in connection with a disproportionate assets case by a Bangalore Special
Court.
Jayalalithaa, who
is also the chief of the AIADMK party, had moved Karnataka High Court on September
29 challenging her conviction in an 18-year-old disproportionate
assets case, and sought her immediate release on bail. The
AIADMK chief on had moved Karnataka High Court challenging her conviction in an
18-year-old disproportionate assets case, and sought her immediate release on
bail.
However,
her plea for immediate bail could not be granted by the Karnataka High
Court. The High Court on September 20 adjourned All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader Jayalalithaa's bail plea hearing to October
6. The court adjourned the matter as there was no representation on
the respondent's side.
Special Public Prosecutor Bhavani Singh told the court that he did not receive
any official communication from the state government on his appointment as a
prosecutor for the appeal.
Singh was also the special public prosecutor at the Special Court.
Jayalalithaa was declared guilty of amassing wealth disproportionate to known
sources of her income under Sections 109 and 120 (b) of the Indian Penal Code
(IPC) and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Her three other
co-accused-one time close aide Sasikala Natarajan, her niece Ilavarasi and her
nephew and disowned foster son Sudhakaran were asked to pay fines of Rs.10
crores each and sentenced to serve jail terms of six months each.
The verdict was delivered at a makeshift court in the Parappana Agrahara prison
complex in the presence of Jayalalithaa and the other accused. However,
terming the verdict as a 'perfectly correct' judgment, Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy said that although Jayalalithaa can appeal
against the verdict in the higher courts, she will not succeed, because the
higher courts will uphold this judgment. "Let her appeal, it is
allowed in the Constitution, all crooks do it, but she is not going to succeed.
The court has given a perfectly correct judgment, and I think that all the
higher level courts like the high court and the Supreme Court will uphold this
judgment," Swamy had said
The
Bangalore verdict resulted in violent protests by the AIADMK cadres leading to
stone pelting and self immolation attempts to express their outrage against the
verdict.
Meanwhile
O. Pannirselvam, now a senior minister in her cabinet who was the interim chief
minister of Tamil Nadu state when Jayalalithaa was in jail
earlier, has again , as per the instructions of
Jayalalithaa from Bangalore jail, assumed the office of CM now.
Abdul Nassar
Madani who had been arrested and put in
Coimbatore jail for 10 years before he was
acquitted by the courts by declaring all cases booked by Kerala and
Tamil Nadu governments null and void, is in also in Bangalore jail
but I son bail for the time being as Karnataka government does want
to release him from jail. In fact, Madani was at home in
his home town Kollam in Kerala when Karnataka government had sent a
police team to arrest him from his home without assigning any valid reason, except
that media blasted the news that Madani was arrested for
another terror case in Karnataka. That is the height of
madness on their part. Madani has been languishing in
Jails without any credible reason because he defended Muslims from
threatening atrocities of Hindutva forces that use region for poll
purposes. .
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