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The Supreme Court, on Friday, adjourned the final hearings in the appeals filed against the acquittal of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, in the disproportionate assets case, to February 23.
A Bench of Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Amitava Roy had originally scheduled to hear the appeals from February 2 onwards.
In a mentioning, the Chief Minister’s lawyer and senior advocate L Nageshwar Rao urged the Bench to postpone the appeal hearing as Justice Ghose would be part of a Constitution Bench hearing the Arunachal Pradesh political crisis which has led to the imposition of President’s Rule in the border-State.
The Arunachal Pradesh case is posted for February 1, but would in all likelihood spill over to following days and impair the hearing in the disproportionate assets case.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the State of Karnataka which has filed the main appeal against the acquittal by the High Court, agreed with Rao’s reasoning and suggested February 23.
Following consensus on both sides, the Bench posted the matter to that day.
Unexpected change Earlier, the appeals had been posted for February 2 following an unexpected change in the constitution of the Bench with Justice Amitava Roy replacing Justice RK Aggarwal as the puisne judge.
The apex court had agreed to hear the appeal for three consecutive days on February 2, 3 and 4.
Justice Ghose had even agreed that the case would be kept at the top of the cause list on the three days of the hearing in the month of February.
In July 2015, during the maiden hearing of the appeal, the apex court had refused to stay the Karnataka High Court’s judgment of acquittal.
The Bench had issued notice to the accused, Jayalalithaa, her close aide N Sasikala, VN Sudhakaran, J Elavarasi on all the petitions filed in the matter by the Karnataka government, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader K Anbazhagan and an intervention application filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy.
The court had also issued notice to a separate petition filed by Anbazhagan challenging the Karnataka High Court order setting aside the confiscation of properties held by Indo-Doha Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, Signora Enterprises Pvt Ltd, Ramraj Agro Mills Ltd, Meadow Agro Farms, Riverway Agro Products “for and on behalf of Jayalalithaa”.
In its appeal, Karnataka termed the acquittal a “gross miscarriage of justice.”
It described the judgment delivered on May 11 by Justice CR Kumaraswamy as “cryptic, lacks reasoning and illogical.”
Corruption case It ridiculed the calculations arrived at by the judge, which resulted in the exoneration of Jayalalithaa and three others in the corruption case.
Filed through State counsel and Supreme Court advocate Joseph Aristotle, the State’s appeal contended that Justice Kumaraswamy did not even bother to record cogent reasons for reversing the “well-considered judgment” delivered by trial court judge John Michael D' Cunha on September 27, 2014.
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