B.V. Acharya, Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, on Tuesday resigned from the post, stating that he “had suffered untold hardship and embarrassment at the instance of interested parties whose sole objective appears to be to get rid of me as SPP.”
Mr. Acharya resigned from the post of Advocate-General in February this year, alleging that the BJP government in Karnataka was “pressuring” him to quit the post of SPP.
When contacted, Mr. Acharya, 78, said: “The interested parties, having failed to achieve the objective by inducements and threats, initiated several proceedings with [an] oblique motive. Petitions were filed before the High Court and the Governor seeking my removal from the post of SPP when I was holding the post of Advocate-General.”
“As a last resort, a private complaint was filed before the Special Lokayukta Court making false and baseless allegations against me, citing my position in the BMS Educational Trust, and an order was obtained for investigation against me. Finally, the High Court recently quashed that complaint, imposing a fine of Rs. 50,000 on the complainant. The filing of complaint and the order for investigation have hurt me deeply, causing acute embarrassment and mental agony to me,” he added.
Even the High Court, in its August 3 order quashing the complaint against him, had found that there was “sufficient weight” in Mr. Acharya’s contention that the complaint was motivated, and was an attempt to humiliate and coerce Mr. Acharya to quit his post as SPP.
Sources close to him said Mr. Acharya, who was appointed SPP in 2005 after the case was transferred to Bangalore from Chennai by an order of the Supreme Court, has narrated in his resignation letter the lack of progress in the trial due to the “obstructionist attitude” of defence.
Mr. Acharya is said to have stated in the letter that he was not in a position to withstand the strain attached to the office of the SPP owing to these false allegations. He is also said to have expressed his “helplessness” in continuing in the post, though, by resigning he might be allowing the “interested parties” to achieve their objective [of removing him from the post of SPP] as he had to take care of his health too.
He is also said to have stated that he accepted the assignment of SPP assuming that it would be over in about a year, but even nearly eight years after the transfer of the trial to a Bangalore court, not much progress had been made because of petitions filed by the accused regularly before the High Court as well as the Supreme Court.
