SC agrees on day-to-day hearing in Jaya DA case

 The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hold day-to-day hearing in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil  Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha and three others.

A bench of Justices P C Ghose and R K Agrawal asked the counsel representing Jayalalitha and others as well as Karnataka and intervenors BJP leader Subramanian Swamy and DMK leader K Anbazhagan to decide among themselves the issues to be considered by the court.

“All of you (counsel) decide the issues and hand it (written note) over to us, so that the matter would be disposed of in day-to-day hearing,” the bench said. The court fixed the matter for consideration on January 8 while indicating that it may start conducting the hearing from February after senior advocates L N Rao, C A Sundaram, Shekhar Naphade, representing Jayalalitha and others, and senior advocate Dushyant Dave and Karnataka advocate-general agreed for it.

Meanwhile, in a rejoinder, the Karnataka government maintained before the court that Jayalalitha and three others were acquitted by the high court in view of “erroneous approach and mis-appreciation of the evidence” in the disproportionate assets case.

“In fact, the prosecution has produced as many as 256 sale deeds, but the high court in the course of the judgment has referred to only 96 sale deeds, ignoring the rest without any reason,” it said, adding that the high court was in error in holding that “Benami” nature of transaction has not been proved.

The fresh response filed by advocate Joseph Aristotle on behalf of the Karnataka government contended that the high court should have dismissed the appeal filed by the AIADMK chief and others on the ground that the sole prosecuting agency, Karnataka, has not been made a party.