Karnataka moves Apex Court against Jayalalithaa

The Karnataka government on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against the acquittal of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa by the Karnataka High Court in the disproportionate assets case, calling it a “gross miscarriage of justice”.

Stating that the High Court judgment delivered on May 11 by Justice CR Kumaraswamy was “cryptic, lacks reasoning and illogical”, the Special Leave Petition faults the calculations by the judge, which resulted in the exoneration of Jayalalithaa and three co-accused. The petition said the judge had used “rates for construction of a sentry shed to fix the value of posh and palatial multi-storied buildings”.

The petition, filed through State counsel and Supreme Court advocate Joseph Aristotle, said the High Court judge had not recorded cogently the reasons for reversing the “well-considered judgment” of the trial court judge, John Michael D’ Cunha, on September 27, 2014.

Adding loans The State government contended that the High Court committed a grave mistake in adding the 10 items of loans to arrive at ₹24,17,31,274, when proper totalling puts the number at ₹10,67,31,274. This, it said, resulted in the erroneous decision that the disproportionate assets were only up to 8.12 per cent of the income when it was actually 76.7 per cent, the disproportionate assets being ₹16,32,36,812 and the income, as found, being ₹21,26,65,654. The petition contended that the judge erred in holding that the loans of the nationalised banks were not considered by the prosecuting agency when, in fact, they had been considered.

Saying that the judgment bordered on perversity, the petition hit out at Justice Kumaraswamy’s reasoning that lack of reasonable opportunity given to the Karnataka government to act as a prosecuting agency was only a “curable irregularity”. The petition reinforced the State government’s position as the “sole prosecuting agency” in the case. It pointed to how the accused persons had never impleaded the Karnataka government in any of the proceedings, including in the Supreme Court.

The petition objected to how Justice Kumaraswamy went the extra mile by glossing over the fact that Karnataka was reduced to a non-entity in the appeal proceedings before the High Court.

Special public prosecutor The petition further contended that the appeals were heard without even a valid appointment of a special public prosecutor. It said that Justice Kumaraswamy erred in employing the same logic used in the Agnihotri case to state that an offence is not made out if disproportionate assets are found to be less than 10 per cent of the income and said that this does not apply in this case as the assets run to crores of rupees.

“In the Agnihotri case, the excess asset found was ₹11,350 and the check period was 13 years. The Supreme Court had acquitted the accused in that case since the excess was comparatively small,” the petition pointed out.

Further, the petition said that the High Court judge erred by ignoring the admissions of the accused themselves about the consideration paid towards sale of immovable properties in determining the cost of construction and the business income of Jaya Publications.

The petition said the High Court judge ignored settled principles of law by not considering the case of conspiracy and abetment involving the accused.