National
Move CJI for early hearing of TANSI cases: SC
By Our Legal Correspondent
NEW DELHI, JAN. 22. The Supreme Court while granting leave to the DMK advocate, R.S. Bharathi, to challenge the December 4, 2001 judgment of the Madras High Court in the TANSI cases, today gave him liberty to move an application before the Chief Justice of India for early hearing of the petitions.
When the Bench, comprising Justice K.T. Thomas and Justice S.N. Phukan, sought the locus standi of the petitioner, senior counsel, Fali S. Nariman, submitted that Mr. Bharathi was the first to question the purchase of the TANSI property by Ms. Jayalalithaa, in her capacity as Chief Minister. He had withdrawn the petitions when the Tamil Nadu Government decided to pursue the cases.
Mr. Nariman submitted that the important questions of law that needed to be decided in these petitions were, namely, whether a Chief Minister or a Minister could purchase government property, whether the High Court was right in holding that the TANSI land was not government property and whether the High Court was correct in holding that the code of conduct for Ministers did not have the force of law. When Mr. Nariman sought stay of the High Court judgment, the Bench said, ``If the judgment is stayed, the conviction and sentence (of three and two years imprisonment imposed by a special court in Chennai) would be revived and that is not correct.'' It directed that the petition filed by the Janata Party president, Subramanian Swamy, be tagged with that of Mr. Bharathi and permitted Dr. Swamy to address arguments during the final hearing of the petitions.
When the Bench observed that it was not inclined to pass any interim order to restrain Ms. Jayalalithaa from holding any public post during the pendency of the petitions, stating ``this is not part of the duty of a criminal court'', Dr. Swamy said he would not press his application.
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