A Special Court in Bangalore on Wednesday re-examined three of the six witnesses in the disproportionate assets case involving AIADMK chief and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and several others.
Apart from Ms. Jayalalithaa, the other accused in the case are Illavarsi, Sasikala Natarajan and V. Sudhagaran. The prosecution (Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Tamil Nadu) had filed applications before the Special Court for re-examining certain witnesses in the case.
The court had allowed the applications and asked the prosecution to give a list of the witnesses it wanted to re-examine. The prosecution had given a list to the court and it had been examining the witnesses at regular intervals.
On Wednesday, the prosecution re-examined Shiva, a broker, Jayaraman, a housekeeper in Ms. Jayalalithaa's residence, and Jawahar, who was a Deputy Secretary when Ms. Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister.
All the three witnesses, as in the case of earlier witnesses who have been re-examined, said that the statements made by them during the chief examination (first examination) were correct.
Of the remaining witnesses, two — Amanullah Marakayar and Kadresan — were dispensed with. Defence counsel Navaneetha Krishnan objected to the other witness Swarnam being re-examined as his name does not figure in the list of witnesses recalled to depose before the court.
After the re-examination of the three witnesses, Special Judge B.M. Mallikarjunaiah asked the defence to point out, if any, the “defects and mistakes in the translated evidences one last time” and posted the trial to January 27. Earlier, senior advocate and Special Public Prosecutor B.V. Acharya filed two applications — one for dispensing with the two witnesses and another for closing the prosecution side of leading evidence.
Of the 72 witnesses, Mr. Acharya has re-examined 15 of them.
