Tuesday, Apr 02, 2002
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By J. Venkatesan
A Bench comprising M.B. Shah and Ruma Pal, while granting leave to the petitioner to challenge the December 4, 2001, judgment of the High Court, gave him liberty to move an application before the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for early hearing of the SLP. On the SLPs filed by Bharathi in January, the Supreme Court had issued notice to Ms. Jayalalithaa and others in the `TANSI' cases (which ended in her acquittal in the High Court) and had given liberty to him to mention before the CJI for expeditious listing and disposal of the SLPs. The first hearing of the SLP in the `hotel case' on February 4 was adjourned by the Bench, which wanted the Registry to ascertain whether the Tamil Nadu Government had filed any SLP in the same case after Ms. Jayalalithaa was acquitted. During the resumed hearing of the case today, the senior counsel, Shanthi Bhushan, submitted that various orders passed by Ms. Jayalalithaa showing favour to the hotel in Kodaikanal could not have been passed without the possibility of corruption. The Bench pointed out to counsel that there was no direct or indirect evidence against Ms. Jayalalithaa to show that there was any corruption in the issue of orders, which if at all were arbitrary could only be illegal, and wanted to know whether Sec. 13 (1) (d) (ii) and (iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act would still be attracted. Counsel submitted that even if there was no direct evidence of corruption, the scope of "criminal misconduct" under this provision "goes beyond bribe''. He argued that a plain reading of the provision would show that dishonesty was not an element to be shown or proved for establishing the offence of criminal misconduct. In his SLP, Mr. Bharathi contended that both Ms. Jayalalithaa and the then Local Administration Minister, T.M. Selvaganapthy, had passed orders by "abusing their positions as public servants'' and they allegedly "obtained' for the hotel owner, pecuniary advantage without any public interest. Contending that the High Court order acquitting Ms. Jayalalithaa and others was misconceived, he sought quashing of the impugned judgment.
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