The Supreme Court today agreed to conduct day-to-day hearing on appeals filed against the Karnataka High Court judgement acquitting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and three others in a disproportionate assets case.
A bench, comprising justices P C Ghose and R K Agrawal, which while admitting the appeals in July this year had not gone into the issue of staying the High Court order, asked the parties concerned to give it the list of issues, which according to them, needed to be decided in the case on January 8.
“Both of you (parties) settle among yourselves and give us the issues need to be decided by us, so that it can be heard quickly and disposed of at the earliest,” the bench said, adding it would hear the matter on a “day-to-day basis”.
The bench said the preliminary issues, which need to be decided, be given to it soon.
On July 27, the apex court had issued notices on the Karnataka government’s appeal seeking stay of the High Court judgement, to Jayalalithaa, her close aide Sasikala, and two of her relatives, V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, and asked them to file their replies within eight weeks.
Meanwhile, the bench which has allowed an intervention application by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in the matter, also asked him to file issues he wished to press before them.
The Karnataka High Court order had on May 11 ruled that the AIADMK supremo’s conviction by the special court suffered from infirmity and was not sustainable in law, clearing the decks for her return as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.
Karnataka government has, in its appeal against the May 11 verdict, taken the ground that the state government’s prosecuting agency was not made a party before the High Court.
The petition, filed through advocate Joseph Aristotle, has also claimed that the High Court erred in computing the disproportionate assets of the AIADMK leader.