A judge of the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday referred to the Special Bench, a petition filed by DMK leader Anbazhagan, who has questioned the authority of advocate Bhavani Singh to represent the prosecution in the appeal filed by AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa questioning her conviction in the disproportionate assets case.
Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, before whom the petition came up for hearing, said that it would be appropriate that the petition be heard by the Special Bench of Justice C.R. Kumaraswamy that was specially assigned to hear the appeals filed by Ms. Jayalalithaa and three other convicts as per Supreme Court’s order.
Senior Counsel C.V. Nagesh, appearing for Mr. Anbazhagan, said that the Special Bench was constituted only to hear the appeals against trial court’s verdict of conviction.
Karnataka Advocate-General Ravi Varma Kumar said that it is for the Court (of Justice Nazeer) to decide whether it wants to hear the petition or not.
Mr. Kumar, however, has said that Mr. Singh has to file his statement as serious allegations have been made against him in the petition.
As the prosecution - Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) - had appointed a counsel to argue on its behalf in relation to Mr. Anbazhagan’s petition, Mr. Nagesh contend that the High Court had, long back, declared that DVAC cannot appoint an advocate but it can be represented only through the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) appointed for conducting of the case.
Mr. Singh, who was the SPP before trial court to conduct trial, is now a “stranger” to the case as the Karnataka government has not appointed him as SPP for appeals, and the DVAC’s instruction given to Mr. Singh to represent it in the appeals is non est in law as both the DVAC and Tamil Nadu have had lost territorial jurisdiction over the case following its transfer to Karnataka way back in 2003.
Finally, Justice Nazeer, who had ordered issue of notice after preliminary round of hearing on the petition last week, said that the petition be placed before the Chief Justice for placing it before Justice Kumaraswamy.
