The Special Court trying disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Wednesday rejected her plea to change the temporary venue for recording of her statement.
Judge B.M. Mallijarjunaiah refused to modify the order of fixing the Gandhi Bhavan, near Central Prison at Parappana Agrahara, as the temporary venue of the Special Court for the purpose of recording her statement in view of security requirement. She had claimed that the venue was not suitable for her appearance as it was under renovation and no proper arrangement was made at the venue.
Gandhi Bhavan is a building, situated in front of the Central Prison, where trial of the some of the sensational criminal cases were held due to security reasons in the recent past.
The Special Court rejected her plea after the Supreme Court rejected her complaint that the Karnataka government has not made adequate security for her appearance and to defer the recording of statement to November last week.
This order has paved the way for recording of her statement under Section 313 of the Indian Penal Code in the case booked against her almost 14 years ago, in 1997. She is appearing before the Special Court in Bangalore for the first time since the case was transferred to Bangalore in 2003.
The allegation against her is that she acquired assets worth about Rs. 66 crore disproportionate to her known sources of income during her tenure as Chief Minister between 1991 and 1996. The trial of the case was held for some time in a Chennai court.
However, the Supreme Court in 2003 transferred the trial of case to Bangalore while holding that fair trial was not possible in Chennai while holding that the accused and the prosecution were in hand in glove after she assumed office of Chief Minister during her earlier term. The case was transferred following a petition by DMK leader K. Anbazhagan.
After trial commenced in Bangalore, the proceedings were held up for a few years following legal battle over the issue of clubbing the two disproportionate assets cases, which finally ended with prosecution withdrawing one of them. The biggest task in the case was translation of thousands of pages of documents to English from Tamil.
Recently, Jayalalithaa approached Supreme Court seeking exemption from personal appearance for recording of statement but her plea was rejected and the Supreme Court fixed October 20 for her appearance.
