The Special Court on Saturday made it clear that AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa and other accused cannot claim to have suffered for 18 years during the trial of the disproportionate assets case as they were not made to appear compulsorily in the court in person through the trial, except on a few occasions.
This was the response of Judge John Micheal Cunha to a plea of Ms. Jayalalithaa that the court be lenient in imposing punishment as she had to undergo 18 years of trauma because of the case registered by the DMK government against her.
The court said the accused personally attended court only during the framing of charges and for answering its questions under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.PC). The court noticed that Ms. Jayalalithaa had been serving as Chief Minister despite the trial and she could not claim to have suffered during this period.
The judge elaborately discussed the details and valuations of the assets of the accused in his nearly 900-page verdict, said one of the advocates who were witness to the process of verdict.
The details of the judgment are not available yet in the public domain as the court has made available copies only to the accused persons as per the provisions of the Cr.PC.
The process of pronouncing the verdict and sentencing was witnessed by only 20 persons apart from court officials and the four accused as entry was restricted for security reasons and because of the small size of the court room.
The Special Public Prosecutor, his assistant, nine advocates representing the accused, four advocates representing DMK leader K. Anbazhagan, who was the intervener in the case, two officials from the DVAC, and an official from the Karnataka Police were the only ones present.
The verdict was pronounced around 11 a.m. and it took just five minutes. Later, the court adjourned the hearing on the sentence to 1 p.m. The hearing finished within 20 minutes following which the judge said that he would pronounce the sentence at 3 p.m. but it got the details by an hour. Ms. Jayalalithaa was sent to the Central Prison hospital around 5.45 p.m.
