THE law seems to be finally catching up with former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalitha. Despite her 70 attempts to stall the judicial process against her and her cohorts, the special court is tightening its noose around her neck. Of the eight cases filed against Jayalalitha, the special court has so far framed charges in three—the Pleasant Stay Hotel case, the disproportionate wealth case and, on May 14, the Rs 10.16 crore colour TV scam case.
Dismissing the discharge petitions filed by Jayalalitha and the others, Special Judge-II V. Radhakrishnan said: "An overall picture of the colour TV scandal, which resulted in loss of several crores of rupees to the government, is visible to the naked eye from the materials placed on record." In his order, the judge said that oral and documentary evidence gathered during the investigation and produced in court led to the presumtion that the accused had committed offences triable by this court.
According to the judge, it was well settled that suspicion was sufficient to frame charges against the accused in respect of an offence alleged. As such, the charges have been framed under IPC Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with Sec 13(2) and 13(1)(d) and (c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and also under IPC Sec 109 (abetment) and 409 (criminal breach of trust).
Jayalalitha contended that as sanction for prosecution had not been obtained for Haribhaskar, it was a truncated cognisance and hence invalid. Also the sanction order in her case was issued by the Governor without due consideration as he did not know Tamil. She also requested for a direction to be sent for the report of the director of DVAC sent to the Governor.
Rejecting her contention, the judge said the DVAC director's report was in no way necessary for the purpose of this enquiry. The nature of documents placed before the Governor had been made clear in the sanction order itself. Except for the report of the additional DGP, all other documents were available before the court. The judge, therefore, said the petitioner had not made out a case which would require the production of documents sought for by her.
Rebutting the argument that the Governor did not know Tamil, the judge said there was no rule or accepted procedure which laid down that the Governor should mention in the sanction order that the documents in Tamil were translated in English and that the sanction had been granted on the basis of that translation. The sanction order was in no way vitiated, he said.
As for the plea of truncated cognisance, the judge said the Supreme Court held the view that no sanction was necessary under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act once a public servant ceased to be one. Hence this contention was not tenable. All the technical objections raised by the petitioner were without any force and they should be overruled, the judge said.
Despite that, the special judges could not proceed with the trial against Jayalalitha and her team due to a stay granted by the Chennai high court which has reserved orders on a batch of writ petitions filed by Jayalalitha and others, challenging the constitutional validity of the appointment of special judges. According to judicial sources, Jayalalitha is hoping that the Union government would shift the Chennai high court chief justice M.S. Liberhan before the first bench delivers the judgement in this crucial case. It is very evident that the present chief justice cannot declare the appointment of the special judges as contra-constitutional because the special court was created and the judges' appointment cleared by him. If Jayalalitha fails to secure the transfer of Justice Liberhan before the day of judgement, her conviction is bound to happen before the end of the year.
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