J. Jayalalithaa Acquitted by Karnataka High Court

By Deepak Parvatiyar

May 12, 2015

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Three high profile court cases in which the rich and affluent either got bail or were acquitted have generated a debate over whether justice is an advantage for those high and mighty.

Consider the series of different court rulings within a span of less than a week that respectively involved superstar Salman Khan, Tamil Nadu’s cult politician J.Jayalalithaa and the former Satyam Computers boss, B Ramalinga Raju.

Within hours after being convicted for culpable homicide in a hit-and-run case by a lower court on 6 May, Salman was able to obtain an interim bail from the Bombay High Court, and within 48 hours, a regular bail that meant  his sentence was suspended and he would remain out of jail  while the High Court takes another look at his case in July.

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On 11 May, a metropolitan sessions court in Hyderabad granted bail to Raju  and nine others a month after they were sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment in the country’s biggest ever corporate accounting fraud. The same day, the Karnataka High Court acquitted the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo Jayalalithaa – who in September last year was convicted by a special court in an 18-year-old disproportionate asset case and was held guilty of acquiring assets worth Rs 66.65 crore through dishonest means during her first tenure as chief minister between 1991 and 1996 and sentenced to four year imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 100 crore. The other convicts in the case were her  former friend V. K. Sasikala, Sasikala’s nephew V. N. Sudhakaran and sister-in-law J. Illavarasi, who too, were sentenced to four years in jail and fined Rs 10 crore each. The high court acquitted all the three also.

All the afore-mentioned three cases are different from each other and have different jurisdictions. However the common thread that runs through them all is the involvement of the rich and the famous. All the three roam freely today and this has triggered a huge debate, particularly in the social media. on whether our criminal justice system favours the rich.

A 2005 study report by Political Research Associates – a U.S.A.- based independent research centre, came out with the findings that since the rich people could afford bail, this made them better prepared for a trial – “Higher-income people can afford better attorneys, expert witnesses, private detectives, and more “respectable” alibis”.

The said report pointed out that of the cases in which the defendant was found guilty in federal courts in the U.S.A., 88 per cent of defendants with a public attorney received prison sentences, compared to 77 per cent of defendants with private lawyers, between 1990 and 1998!
Doesn’t the same hold good in Indian context also?

No one questions the integrity of a judge nor does anyone question the motive behind the judgement and a judge is supposed to decide a case without fear or favour on the basis of material presented before him/her. But, as Supreme Court lawyer Braj Kishore Mishra says, “This is the idea to be achieved”. He feels that the judges,  being human beings and a product of the same societal impressions, may not be totally detached and immune from such influences that “need not be for extraneous consideration but due to personal experiences, political leanings, ideological leanings etc”.

This is not to say that judges don’t decide cases dispassionately. In most cases they so. But in some cases, as Mishra says,  they may get influenced by the status of the party or their own personal biases.

What tilts the balance in favour of the rich and famous is the fact that they can afford to have the best available legal brains. The judge does decide on the basis of the material available before him but is assisted by the counsel in interpreting the material.

“A suave counsel may just be able to persuade a judge to take a particular viewpoint which an ordinary counsel may not be able to. Presentation assumes great importance in litigation. It’s like one person asking ‘can I smoke while I pray’ and the other ‘can I pray when I smoke’, Mishra says.

Obviously this can be realized particularly in case of Salman, who hired one of the most high profile advocate, Harish Salve, in his bid to secure bail quickly that made a prominent television channel, NDTV, ask in one of its headlines: “Relief for Salman Khan in 48 Hours: Swift Bail Only for the Rich?”

Yet,the most significant of the judgements of the above three is the acquittal of Jaya – ‘Amma’ to her millions of followers in Tamil Nadu – by the Karnataka high court. While setting aside the special court’s order, the high court  said Jayalalithaa was entitled for acquittal as the disproportionate assets (DA) held by her were “less than 10 per” cent of her income. “The margin of 10% to 20% of the disproportionate assets has been taken as a permissible limit, taking into consideration the inflationary measures… In the instant case, the disproportionate asset is less than 10% and it is within permissible limit. Therefore, Accused are entitled for acquittal. When the principal Accused has been acquitted, the other Accused, who have played a lesser role are also entitled for acquittal,” the high court ruled.

While passing the verdict, the high court said “Taking into consideration of overall circumstances and material placed on record, in my view, the Judgment and finding recorded by the Trial Court suffers from infirmity and it is not sustainable in law.”

The High Court set aside the Trial court verdict largely on the following grounds:

• 1. The Trial Court did not appreciate the evidence in a proper perspective and  ignored the Income Tax proceedings as minimum evidential value.
• 2. Though the Trial Court in its judgment mentioned that the accused availed loan by the Indian Bank, but iterred by not considering the loans as income.
• 3. The Trial Court failed to examine the evidence relating to the cost of construction at that relevant time and “simply arrived at a conclusion that 20% of the cost has to be reduced without appreciating the evidence placed on record” – “This 20% reduction is calculated on surmises and conjectures.”
• 4. The Trial Court assessed the Marriage Expenses at Rs.3,00,00,000/- but there was “no acceptable evidence” to point out that the accused (Jayalalithaa) had spent about Rs.3,00,00,000/-.
• 5. “Most of the claims putforth by the accused have been rejected by the Trial Court”

Reacting to the verdict, one of the petitioners Subramanyam Swami, who is now a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, reportedly said : “It’s not an unusual thing. When you are in a democratic system, then such twists & turns are expected.”

It may be mentioned that the high profile case involving Jayalalithaa had  its share of controversies. Way back in 2003, the case was transferred to Bangalore’s Special Court by the Supreme Court following a petition in this regard by the rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham leader K Anbazhagan, who had doubted a fair trial since Jayalalithaa was back as Tamil Nadu chief minister in May 2001. Initially B.V. Acharya  was appointed as the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) but he had stepped down on grounds that there were attempts made to influence him a great deal. In his place G. Bhavani Singh  was appointed as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) for the case. Singh, on his part was accused of being biased towards Jayalalithaa. In May, 2014 a Rs. 60,000 fine was issued to him for seeking repeated delays in hearings and adjournments in the case since January 27, 2014. But this was not the only controversy involving Singh. In 2012, he was removed by the Karnataka government as SPP after DMK general secretary K. Anbazhagan questioned his appointment for the case. His removal was later stayed by the Supreme Court after Singh approached the apex court.

However, this year on 27 April, The Supreme Court struck down Singh’s appointment as the SPP and declared that the interference of the Tamil Nadu government in his appointment was a manifestation of the government’s “anxiety” about the future. The apex court held that Karnataka was the sole prosecuting agency in the pending appeals filed by Jayalalithaa, and three others against their conviction. While the apex court  directed the High Court judge to take no heed of the arguments made by Singh, it, however, dismissed any need for having a fresh hearing of the appeals.

After the acquittal of Jayalalithaa in the High Court,  BV Acharya, who was back as SPP after the Supreme Court verdict, said the he “was denied an opportunity to convince High Court judge through oral arguments. This has seriously prejudiced the case of the prosecution.”

What Jayalalithaa’s acquittal means to Tamil Nadu Politics?

Jayalalithaa’s acquittal means now she can return to the office as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the ban on her contesting elections will be lifted. She will be required to contest elections within six months if she returns as CM. It has many more political ramifications, too, particularly concerning the Bharatiya Janata Party.

She is back at the most appropriate time to revive her party’s prospects for the 2016 assembly elections in the state and negate any political mileage that opposition parties, particularly the DMK sought to derive out of her earlier conviction. Her acquittal also is a setback to her bête noire and BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy’s plans for making inroads into Tamil Nadu politics by now depriving the saffron brigade any such opportunity after her return.

What is interesting is that after Jaya’s conviction by the Special Court, Swamy had reportedly claimed that justice was delivered because prime minister Narendra Modi “did not influence the disproportionate assets case… and let it go independently”.

After her acquittal, Modi reached out to ‘Amma’ and, as an AIADMK release said, “extended his greetings”.

Considering the  AIADMK as a major NDA ally at the Centre, whose support is required particularly in the Rajya Sabha where the NDA is in minority, Jayalalithaa’s significance remains intact in national politics and for Modi, who is believed to be in good terms with her.
As for challenging the High Court verdict, it is now left to the State of Karnataka and also Swamy (the original complainant), and the DMK general secretary K.Anbazhagan (the intervenor in this case) – to appeal against this verdict.

One, this is for sure, as advocate Mishra points out – If the evidence for or against a person is overwhelming, even best legal brains will not be able to influence the outcome.

But he concedes that in most cases there are “shades of grey”. And that is what is exploited by advocates for their rich and powerful clients
!