Charge and discharge

TO THE OBVIOUS embarrassment of Tamil Nadu's DMK regime, the prosecution of Ms. Jayalalitha, who has been accused in a string of corruption cases, has run into extremely rough judicial weather. Her discharge, by the Madras High Court, in two cases relating to the TANSI land deal, must have come as an enormous shock to the prosecuting authorities, who had believed that these were among the legally strongest cases against the AIADMK leader and former Chief Minister. Quite obviously, the Court has adopted a radically different view, having ruled that there was no ground for even framing a single charge against her in the TANSI case, which essentially revolves around the legality of the purchase of land owned by this quasi-government agency by a couple of firms in which Ms. Jayalalitha was a partner. The prosecution's principal contentions - that a conspiracy was hatched to purchase the property unlawfully and at an undervalued rate - were found wanting by the Court, thereby resulting in Ms. Jayalalitha being discharged from a case for the second time. The judge found that the manner in which the purchase was made in an auction did not attract the provisions of Section 169 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which prohibits public servants from unlawfully acquiring certain properties that belong to the Government.

It was only a little earlier that Ms. Jayalalitha was discharged by a Special Court in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the import of coal - a ruling that has now been confirmed by the Madras High Court. Since the DMK Government is likely to prefer an appeal against these rulings, the question of whether there are enough grounds to send Ms. Jayalalitha to trial in these cases is something that will be finally settled only at a higher judicial forum. Nevertheless, the judicial double blow in the TANSI and the coal import cases constitutes an immediate and serious setback for the DMK regime which has claimed that the chargesheets in the cases against Ms. Jayalalitha and other AIADMK leaders were readied in all fairness and strictly on the basis of impartial evidence collected by its investigating agencies. With Ms. Jayalalitha repeatedly alleging that the charges have been trumped up, the cases have been lent an inescapable political colour; so much so, every judicial setback for one side has come to be regarded as a political victory for the other.

Having ridden to power in 1991 after conducting a successful campaign against the ``corrupt Jayalalitha regime'', the DMK Government initiated a plethora of cases against her and almost the entire leadership of her party. Special Courts were set up to try these cases and while the objective was to secure speedy convictions, a number of legal twists and turns have retarded the progress of the trials. Until now, there have been only two convictions - both of AIADMK MLAs who were held guilty for possessing assets disproportionate with their known sources of income. However, in a milieu where the cases have become inextricably tied up with politics, this may be small comfort for a regime that has found itself judicially tripped in two important cases involving the former Chief Minister. Later this month, a special judge is expected to deliver his verdict in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case, which relates to the allegedly illegal manner in which permission was granted for the construction of a building in Kodaikanal and in which Ms. Jayalalitha has also been accused. As the first judgment of its kind in a case involving the former Chief Minister, the verdict is bound to generate a considerable amount of interest. But the fact that it is one of the very few cases that has reached the judgment stage reflects how long the so-called `Jayalalitha and AIADMK corruption cases' have taken - cases which, until now, have generated more political heat than judicial light.

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