Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is expected to convey to the Supreme Court on Thursday that she has kept her word that she would not delay her criminal appeal before the Karnataka High Court, challenging the four-year imprisonment awarded in a disproportionate assets case.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu had, on October 17, granted Ms. Jayalalithaa bail, reposing faith in the oral assurances of her lawyer, Fali Nariman, that she would not delay the criminal appeal proceedings in the 18-year-old case.
Though it granted bail, the Bench did not dispose of the bail petition. It fixed a hearing for December 18, when Ms. Jayalalithaa and three co-accused were to report that they kept their word and filed the appeal documents and records in the High Court.
Ms. Jayalalithaa filed her appeal papers, which contained voluminous documents running to 2.8 lakh pages, in the Karnataka High Court on December 8.
Sources in Ms Jayalalithaa’s legal team said they would be more than willing to cooperate if the Supreme Court fixed a time frame for the completion of the appeal hearing. However, her lawyers said three months might be too short given the sheer size of the documents submitted before the HC.
Detailed arguments against the Special Court verdict have been prepared, with Ms. Jayalalithaa’s lawyers focussing on what they term “a faulty analysis of evidence” by the lower court. Even during his arguments for her bail in the Karnataka HC, senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani focussed on the treatment of evidence by the Special Judge.
