Karnataka high
court's first notification of 2015, issued as per the orders of the apex court,
has a huge political significance for Tamil Nadu. Notification no.1/2015 has
announced that Justice C R Kumaraswamy will be the one to hear appeals filed by
former chief minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa and three associates in the
high court against their conviction for corruption.
The cases have been
listed for hearing on a "day-to-day basis". While Jayalalithaa and
her associates will seek to disprove special judge John Michael D Cunha's
finding that assets worth Rs 53.6 crore were amassed illegally by them,
Anbazhagan will seek enhancement of sentence from four years to the permissible
maximum seven years under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Anbazhagan was
instrumental in getting the case transferred out of Tamil Nadu in November 2003
when the Supreme Court upheld his petition saying an opposition played the role
of a 'watch dog' of the government in power.
In his
notification, the registrar (judicial) of Karnataka HC said Justice Kumaraswamy
was being named to constitute a special bench, as per the orders of the Supreme
Court. The apex court had, on October 17, asked Karnataka HC to constitute a
special bench to hear the Jayalalithaa team's appeals against their conviction
in the disproportionate assets case by the special court in Bengaluru on
September 27. Additionally, it extended bail to Jayalalithaa, N Sasikalaa, J
Ilavarasi and V N Sudhakaran till April 18, indicating that it would be the
outer limit by which the appeal proceedings must come to an end in the high
court.
The first round of
the 18-year litigation on corruption charges and amassment of assets worth Rs
66.65 crore disproportionate to Jayalalithaa's known sources of income, came to
an end on September 27 when special judge John Michael Cunha found her guilty
of illegally amassing assets worth Rs 53.6 crore (he accepted the defence
team's explanation for the remaining Rs 13 crore) and sentenced her to four
years imprisonment, besides a fine of Rs 100 crore. Her three associates too
were found guilty and sentenced to four-year jail term each. They were imposed
Rs 10 crore each as fine.
After vacation
benches of Karnataka HC, and then a regular bench of the court on October 7
refused to suspend the sentence and release the four on bail, the Supreme Court
came to their rescue and granted bail on October 17. It directed Jayalalithaa's
counsel to file relevant appeal documents before the high court by December 18.
On December 18, the apex court extended their bail till April 18, and asked the
HC to hear the case on daily basis. Citing "peculiar circumstances",
it asked the high court to hear all four criminal appeals on a day-to-day basis
and pronounce the judgment in three months.
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