The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to V.K. Sasikala, close aide of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and the Tamil Nadu government on an application filed by the DMK General Secretary for monitoring the disproportionate case against Ms. Jayalalitha, Ms. Sasikala and three others and for day-to-day trial of the case.
The applicant K. Anbazhagan alleged that the two accused were bent upon derailing the trial proceedings in the disproportionate case against them and this would be evident after Ms. Jayalalithaa came to power.
A vacation Bench while refusing to stay the trial in the Bangalore court had issued notice to the State on a special leave petition filed by Ms. Sasikala seeking certain documents from the prosecution to enable her to answer questions under Section 313 Cr.P.C.
The DMK General Secretary, K. Anbazhagan, on whose petition the Supreme Court had transferred the case to Bangalore in November 2003 had filed the present application for impleadment in this case through advocate V.G. Pragasam.
On Monday senior counsel T.R. Andhyarujina told a Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi that trial was being subverted by the accused and the State was by-passing the Special Public Prosecutor B.V. Acharya, who was appointed by the Supreme Court. He said the SPP who was conducting the trial for the last eight years must be heard in these proceedings.
Senior counsel V. Giri, appearing for Ms. Sasikala, opposed the impleadment application and said once the State was represented, no other party was necessary. He said he would have no objection if Mr. Acharya was engaged as a senior counsel by the State but he opposed any notice to him. In her petition Ms. Sasikala had stated that she had already answered 599 questions by the prosecution and 1,000 more were expected. She said in order to answer these 1,000-odd questions, the defence needed certain documents which were part of the case, but were not being granted to the accused.
State counsel B. Balaji said Mr. Acharya had already been served a copy of the petition and he denied that the State was trying the by-pass the SPP.
The Bench after hearing the counsel posted the matter for further hearing on August 13. It would consider whether to issue notice to the SPP or not on that day after hearing the parties, the Bench said.
In his application Mr. Anbazhagan said the proceedings in the trial court had reached the final stage. He said that Ms. Sasikala’s claim for perusal of court records 15 years after the proceedings commenced would show that the prayer for inspection of records was totally frivolous and vexatious. Such an inspection and roving enquiry prayed for could not be granted in law. A mere reading of Ms. Sasikala’s petition would clearly show the ulterior motive behind the prayer, namely, to protract the proceedings, “which warrants summary dismissal.”
