Supreme Court has the key to end Tamil Nadu turmoil

While the Governor is biding his time waiting for the judgement, the delay in delivering the judgement in the two-decade-old case despite it reserving its orders on June 7 last year has brought into focus as to what delayed justice especially involving the so-called higher echelons in society can cause. 

The FIR in this case was registered in 1996 and since then the cause of justice was subverted for long, before the trial was shifted from Tamil Nadu to Bengaluru’s Special Court in 2003 by the Supreme Court. The special court on September 27, 2014 had convicted the late former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, her close aide Sasikala and two of her relatives -V N Sudhakaran and Ilavarasi and sentenced them to four years in jail. 

Subsequently, a single judge of the Karnataka High Court, on citing a Supreme Court judgement had set aside the special court’s order on the basis that their known source of income was only 8.12 per cent more than their known sources of income while the Supreme Court in 1977 had provided a 10 per cent leverage. 

However, the Karnataka Government preferring an appeal at the Supreme Court, had tried to thwart the math’s worked out by the single judge. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave pointed out that if the cost of construction of buildings, business income of Jaya Publications and if the marriage expenses of Sudhagaran were included, the excess income comes to 168%.

The Supreme Court on observing that acquiring assets ‘per se’ is not a crime unless the sources are found to be illegal, had outlined three options on what it would be dealing with:1. Either uphold the High Court verdict or reverse it 2. Re-appreciate the entire evidence which may lead to fresh re-trial and 3. Remand the matter to the High Court for fresh reconsideration.

Based on this, the Supreme Court had reserved its orders on June 7 and since then much water had flown with the prime accused Jayalalithaa also passing away. However, while Sasikala was preparing herself to stake claim for the Chief Minister’s chair after being elected as the AIADMK legislature party leader, Dave who argued for the Karnataka government reminded the bench comprising Justice P C Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy on February 6 about the verdict calling it as an “unpleasant duty of the counsel.” To this the bench had said that it would be delivered in a week. Since then, the Governor has been delaying the government formation while Constitutional experts point out that legally he is bound to go by the letter given by Sasikala staking claim with signatures of 134 MLAs. However, it is also said that the Governor cannot ignore the charge levelled by O Panneerselvam that he was threatened by Sasikala and her family to resign. 

Madras High Court, senior advocate, N G R Prasad, said “Had the Supreme Court delivered its judgement in time, the present situation of Governor delaying the formation of government would not have risen. The delay had only led to claims and counter claims with the legislators being taken for a bus ride.”

For now, with more time lapsing, Sasikala is turning jittery with chances of legislators slipping away from her camp looming large. 

While for Sasikala, the Supreme Court judgement hangs like a Damocles sword, the interim Chief Minister O Panneerselvam seems to be sitting pretty banking on a verdict from people’s court.