SC to hear State's plea against Jaya acquittal on Feb 2

The Supreme Court on Friday said it would start hearing on February 2 the Karnataka government’s appeal against the High Court’s acquittal of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and three others in a disproportionate assets case.

A bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy fixed the matter for detailed consideration on February 2, 3 and 4. The court instructed both the parties to submit within two weeks the issues it should consider.

The court had earlier agreed to conduct day-to-day hearing on Karnataka’s appeal that the High Court on May 11, 2015, committed a “grave error” in calculating the disproportionate assets of Jayalalithaa and others. The High Court calculated the illegal assets as 8.12 per cent of their total income when the actual proportion worked out to 76.7 per cent, Karnataka argued.

In her response, Jayalalithaa suggested that the Karnataka government’s challenge to her acquittal was a “deep and pervasive antipathy to the will of people” who re-elected her with overwhelming majority. She also contended that the charges of conspiracy and abetment were “nothing but a myth”.

Besides the Karnataka government, DMK leader K Anbazhagan and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy have also challenged the acquittal of Jayalalithaa, her former close aide Sasikala and two of her relatives, V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi.

Jayalalithaa had to resign as chief minister after a special court in Bengaluru sentenced her to four years in jail and fined her Rs 100 crore under the Prevention of Corruption Act on September 27, 2014. But the High Court acquitted her.