In a double blow to former Youth Welfare and Sports Development Minister P. Balakrishna Reddy of Hosur, the Madras High Court on Friday not only refused to stay his conviction by a trial court in a 1998 rioting case but also refused to suspend the sentences imposed on him.
Justice V. Parthiban’s refusal to grant relief would mean that the former Minister would remain to be disqualified from being an MLA and would have to be jailed unless he approaches the Supreme Court and obtains an order in his favour.
The judge, however, kept pending an appeal preferred by him challenging the trial court’s verdict and directed the High Court Registry to list it for final hearing in the first week of February. The appellant had taken frantic efforts to get the conviction stayed so that he could escape from disqualification.
According to the Supreme Court’s judgment delivered on September 26 in a case filed by Lok Prahari, a non governmental organisation, the disqualification under Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) of 1951 would not come into operation if an appellate court stays the conviction.
Though this judgment was cited before Mr. Justice Parthiban, he wondered where was the question of staying the conviction when he was not even inclined to suspend the sentences. The case against the appellant was that he was part of a mob that torched police vehicles and damaged government buses at Bagalur village in Krishnagiri district 20 years ago.
A special court hearing cases related to members of Parliament and that of the Legislative Assembly convicted him in the two-decade-old case on Monday.
He was also sentenced to three years of imprisonment forcing him to resign from ministership on the same day because as per the RPA, every MLA who gets convicted and sentenced to more than two years of imprisonment would get disqualified from the date of conviction and would remain so for a further period of six years from the date of his release.
Stating that the appellant had brought upon himself the present predicament, the judge said: “Though today, the society does not expect saints in public life due to progressive erosion of traditional values and ethos, it can at least hope to look forward to have tolerant and saner persons with decorus conduct in public life.
“Only then the public at large would feel that they are being governed by men of stature. Since politics is all pervading in our society, people always look upon the leaders for guidance and inspiration and if such leaders are involved in mindless violence, the democratic polity gets defiled.”
The appellant may not have been an MLA in 1998 “but what he had done, which was proved in the trial court, was an affront to the rule of law. This court is unable to comprehend as to how a yesteryear law breaker can claim to continue as law framer,” the judge said.
