Jayalalithaa case: file appeal, Acharya tells Karnataka govt

Special Public Prosecutor BV Acharya on Thursday recommended to the Karnataka government to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Karnataka High Court’s verdict to acquit AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa and three others in a disproportionate assets (DA) case.

“I have given my opinion to the State government after going through the High Court’s verdict. I have said that it is fit to appeal to the apex court,” Acharya said while refusing to divulge the details of his legal opinion, in which he has analysed the 919-page verdict.

The High Court on May 11 had acquitted all the four for lack of evidence to establish that they had possessed DA of ₹53.6 crore as held by a special court, which in its September 27, 2014 verdict had convicted and sentenced them to four years’ imprisonment.

“The percentage of disproportionate assets is 8.12 per cent. It is relatively small. In the instant case, the disproportionate asset is less than 10 per cent and it is within the permissible limit. Therefore, the accused are entitled for acquittal,” Justice CR Kumaraswamy of the High Court had held in the verdict.

Meanwhile, in response to a query on “glaring arithmetical error” committed by the High Court in its verdict, Acharya said the judge who delivered the verdict cannot “alter or review” it in view of the bar imposed under Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Section 362 states that “…no court, when it has signed its judgment or final order disposing of a case, shall alter or review the same except to correct a clerical or arithmetical error.”

“The High Court, going by the facts of this case, cannot have a relook into the verdict in the DA case,” Acharya said when asked about the possibilities of the High Court correcting the “error” in computing loans, obtained by Jayalalithaa, her three aides, and their firms, from nationalised banks.

The High Court had treated these as their “income”.

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