The AIADMK General Secretary Jayalalithaa has moved the Supreme Court challenging the trial court's order refusing to discharge her in the disproportionate assets case pending in a Bangalore court. The trial is scheduled to commence on May 3.
Senior counsel Uday U. Lalit made a mention on Friday before a three-judge Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice Deepak Verma and Justice H.L. Gokhale for early listing of the matter. The Bench directed it to be included in the ‘mention' list on May 4.
In her special leave petition, Ms. Jayalalithaa said the entire proceedings against her under the Prevention of Corruption Act were a tool of harassment. By the order dated April 27, the special court had rejected her application for discharge on the basis of patently erroneous legal and factual considerations.
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She maintained that the object of Section 17 of the PC Act was to safeguard a diligent public servant from undue harassment. If the investigation itself had been done by an officer who was not competent to do so, then no prosecution could be maintained against the accused.
She said the investigation was without jurisdiction and the further trial thereon was non est in the eye of law and that by itself was clear proof of miscarriage of justice. The petitioner was greatly prejudiced as she had been mulcted with these proceedings out of political rivalry.
She said the special court failed to appreciate that the proceedings were tainted by mala fides in that V.C. Perumal (the then) Inspector General of Police was the complainant/informant and also the person registering the FIR and he went further to purport to appoint an investigating officer in the FIR itself.
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The SLP said that Mr. Perumal could not have passed the order for investigation because he was the informant.
Ms. Jayalalithaa said the special court had erred in holding against her on the ground of purported delay which was wholly unjustified. She sought quashing the trial court's order and an interim stay of the trial.