People are very familiar with scenes of Pettai-rowdy women, mostly under the influence of liquor, boisterously shouting at others and challenging to take on her and then at the sight of a police vehicle or men in uniforms, getting subdued, apologetic and fall on their feet. In English we know them as foolhardy and not courageous. So is ADMK chief Jayalalitha and to call her courageous or brave is a misnomer.
A news analysis filed by J.Stalin (again, a misnomer) in ‘Deccan Chronicle’ its edition dated October 3 under the headline ‘Jaya clears all but one legal hurdle’ said that ‘Jayalalitha, who has been fighting legal cases for the past 15 years, has been cleared in eight of the nine corruption cases filed against her by the DMK regime in 1996, the latest cleared being the Rs.2 crore gift case’, ‘of the nine cases, now only the Rs.66.65 crore disproportionate wealth case in a court at Bangalore is the only one pending against her.’
Taking the latest one of Birthday gift case, when Jayalalitha was the Chief Minister in 1992, birthday gifts to the tune of Rs.2,09,50,012 were presented to her by various persons in cash, cheques and DDs. As Chief Minister she must have remitted the amount in government account, but instead she deposited them in her personal account. Because the ADMK was in power, there was no case on this. After the DMK came to power, the CB-CID branch of police department filed a case on 24.6.1996, but it was transferred to CBI for inquiry on 7.8.1996. Only after 10 years, on 31.7.2006 the CBI officials filed the chargesheet. According to CBI, on the occasion of her birthday in 1992, Jayalalitha had obtained 89 demand drafts worth Rs.2 crore from 57 persons drawn on various banks in the state in her name. Twelve names were found to be fictitious, 12 others denied that they had purchased DDs while 33 confirmed the purchase and presentation of DDs to her. CBI in its petition has sought a date to be fixed for framing charges and thereafter day-to-day trial alleging it was being delayed by her and K.A.Sengottaiyan, also an accused. Jayalalitha was charged under Section 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) accepting valuables from persons with whom she had official dealings. Jayalalitha had sought to quash the case citing ‘inordinate and unexplained delay’ of 10 years in completing investigations. The 2000-page chargesheet had 285 supporting documents and lists 149 prosecution witnesses. Dismissing her discharge petition, a special CBI court on April 12, 2011 directed her to appear before it on May 11 for framing of charges in the case.
Hence she appealed to the Madras High Court and it was posted before Justice C.T.Selvam. She asked for the change of the court and the Chief Justice posted the case before Justice K.N.Basha, who on 30.9.2011 quashed the entire proceedings on the case holding that ‘the petitioner’s constitutional right to speedy trial flagrantly violated.’
In his order, the judge had not said that she did not receive the gifts on her b’day, or disputed the fact of the charge that she received the amount. The judge had not said that the charge that instead of remitting to government accounts she deposited them in her personal account is not correct. The judge had not acquitted her as there was no evidence for her receiving the funds, or for her not remitting to government account, or that she credited to her personal account.
But still the case against her was quashed because the CBI filed the chargesheet after 10 years. That is Jayalalitha receiving gifts as CM is not an offence but delay in filing chargesheet by the CBI is wrong!
Between 31.7.2006 when the CBI filed chargesheet, all these five years and more, who delayed the framing of charges and conduct of trial?
The judge had said ‘the delay of 10 years on completing the investigation, was tested on the touchstone of Supreme Court principles, he had no hesitation on holding that the petitioner’s constitutional right to speedy trial stood flagrantly violated.’
Almost at the same time of the committing of offence by Jayalalitha (Feb. 1992) did happen the vachathi atrocities in June 1992. The judgements in both cases had been delivered in the month of September 2011 – one by the HC on Sep.30 and the other by Principal district and sessions court, Dharmapuri the previous day, Sep.29, 15 years after the CBI filed chargesheet in April 1996. For no delay of the investigation process, the judicial process has taken 15 years to deliver justice to the hapless tribals. What is the ‘touchstone of Supreme Court principles’ for the ‘constitutional right for speedy trial’ for the tribals. Are they not citizens of this country? Is there special treatment under the Constitution for a Chief Minister?
So the ‘Deccan Chronicle’ story is wrong to state that Jayalalitha has been ‘cleared’ of corruption in this case as the HC has only ‘quashed’ the proceedings in the case, not disputing the charge of corruption under Section 15 of the PCA!
That is the same state of affairs in respect of the other seven corruption cases in which the daily had said that she had been cleared; She was not cleared of corruption but ‘let off’ on legally technical grounds.
For instance take the TANSI case, the Supreme Court order on 24 November 2003 stated the following:
“In matters of such nature, is the Code of Conduct meant only to be kept as an ‘ornamental relic’ in a museum but not to be practiced? These aspects do worry our conscience. Respondent No.1 (Jayalalitha) in her anxiety to save her skin went to any length even to deny her signature on documents which her auditor and other Government officials identified.
Report leading to IPC makes it clear that criminal law merely prescribes the minimum standards of behaviour, while in public life, those who hold high offices should not take shelter under the umbrella of criminal law but stand by high probity. Further, criminal law is meant to deal with criminals ordinarily, while Code of Conduct is observed as gentlemen’s agreement. Persons in public life, who are gentlemen, follow such Code instead of taking escape routes by resorting to technical pleas as arise in criminal cases. Persons in public life are expected to maintain very high standards of probity, and particularly, when there is likely to be even least bit of conflict of interest between the office one holds and the acts to be done by such person, ought to desist himself from indulging in the same. Such standards of behaviour were scrupulously observed in the earlier days after independence, but those values have now dwindled and instances of persons holding high elective offices indulging in self-aggrandisement by utilizing Government property or in distribution of the largesse of the Government to their own favourties or for certain quid pro quo are on the increase. We have to strongly condemn such actions. Good ethical behaviour on the part of those who are in power is the hallmark of a good administration and people in public life must perform their duties in a spirit of public service rather than by assuming power to indulge in callous cupidity regardless of self imposed discipline. Irrespective of the fact whether we reach the conclusion that A-1 (Jayalalitha) is guilty of the offences with which she is charged or not, she must atone for the same by answering her conscience in the light of what we have stated not only by returning the property to TANSI unconditionally but also ponder over whether she had done the right thing in breaching the spirit of the Code of Conduct and giving rise to suspicion that rules and procedures were bent to acquire the public property for personal benefit, though trite to say that suspicion however strong cannot take place of legal proof in a criminal case and take steps to expiate herself.”
Do these observations mean for ‘Deccan Chronicle’ daily and its staff-journalist J.Stalin, who is regularly contributing pro-Jayalalitha and pro-ADMK write-ups, that Jayalalitha being cleared of corruption and misuse of office charges against her?
ADMK Lawyers Wing President V.S.Sethuraman has been quoted in the report saying, “This shows the lion-hearted courageous action of Jayalalitha in giving a clean government for the welfare of the people of TN without expecting anything for herself and her family” (wonder, what is her family!)
If Jayalalitha is indeed lion-hearted and courageous, why did she went to the level of disowning her own signatures in TANSI documents, to be pulled up by the Supreme Court? Why did she protract every case for years together by seeking ‘vaaidhas’ on frivolous grounds and going on appeals to higher courts for some reason or the other, only to be returned back to the trial court? Is it not a fact that she sought more than 130 vaaidhas (adjournments) in Disproportionate Assets case and surreptitiously deployed DAVC for reinvestigation of the Assets case for its dilution? Was she not pulled up by the Supreme Court for this nefarious design in London Hotel case? Is there a single case that she faced straight forward and got acquitted?
So, Jayalalitha has amply demonstrated that she is not lion-hearted and courageous, but chicken-hearted and cowardly, like the woman referred to in the beginning!
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