SC calls trial court order 'unexceptionable'

The Supreme Court on Tuesday described as “unexceptionable” the trial court’s order of confiscation and forfeiture of the properties of six companies floated by Jayalalithaa and others.

A bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy also said it should be construed as an order by the apex court.

The bench directed Sasikala and two others to surrender forthwith before the trial court, which was further directed “to take immediate steps to ensure” that Sasikala and others serve out the remainder of sentence.

The trio has served 21 days in prison after their conviction by the trial court in September 2014. The Supreme Court had on October 17 that year released Jayalalithaa and her co-accused on bail.

Notably, the bench also said that the apex court did not need to make fresh calculation of the assets and liabilities to arrive at a number since the trial court had already undertaken this exercise in a correct manner.

The court found “unimpeded, frequent and spontaneous inflow of funds” from the account of then Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa to those of the other co-accused and the firms/companies, which “overwhelmingly” demonstrated their “collective culpable involvement”.

Following the criminal conspiracy, the accused tried to present those transactions as “masked banking exchanges” involving several accounts, but mostly of the same bank, the court said.

Free society from corruption: SC
While convicting Sasikala and others in the disproportionate assets case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday called for “a collective, committed and courageous turnaround” to “free the civil order from the suffocative throttle of the deadly affliction” of corruption, DHNS reports from New Delhi.

In his supplementary verdict, Justice Amitava Roy said, “Both the corrupt and the corrupter are indictable and answerable to the society and the country as a whole. This is more particularly with respect to the peoples’ representatives in public life committed by the oath of the office to dedicate oneself to the unqualified welfare of the laity...in accordance with the Constitution”.

The judge called upon every citizen to be a partner in “this sacrosanct mission” for a stable, just and ideal social order as envisioned by our forefathers.

“This virulent affliction (corruption) triggers an imbalance in society’s existential stratas and stalls constructive progress in the overall well-being of the nation, besides disrupting its dynamics of fiscal governance. It encourages defiance of the rule of law and the propensities for easy materialistic harvests, whereby the society’s soul stands defiled, devalued and denigrated,” Justice Roy said in his separate 7-page judgement.