Indian religious politics: Jayalalithaa now invokes divine intervention in settling the illegal assets case!

-Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

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Former Tamil actress turned TN chief minister Ms. J. Jayalalithaa, a strong aspirant of Indian premier’s chair in New Delhi,  continues to play her role well in politics too to get her released from the disproportionate asset case which has already cost her CM post and the right to contest for 10 years.  The case is now before the Hon Karnataka High Court. She now plays with the religious sentiments of Indian judges most of them are religious minded Hindus. Jaya and her party leaders are sure their religious tool would force the Indian judiciary to “listen” to the call of gods and get Jaya out of all cases so that she resumes power as CM of TN.

However, at the back of their minds the AIADMK politicians know it is not always possible to fool the alert judiciary as it is easy done by the government dealing with common people. 

Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa conveyed to the Supreme Court that she has kept her word that she would not delay her criminal appeal before the Karnataka High Court, challenging the four-year imprisonment awarded in a disproportionate assets case.  A Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu had, on October 17, granted Ms. Jayalalithaa bail, reposing faith in the oral assurances of her lawyer, Fali Nariman, that she would not delay the criminal appeal proceedings in the 18-year-old case.

Though it granted bail, the Bench did not dispose of the bail petition. It fixed a hearing for December 18, when Ms. Jayalalithaa and three co-accused were to report that they kept their word and filed the appeal documents and records in the High Court. Ms. Jayalalithaa filed her appeal papers, which contained voluminous documents running to 2.8 lakh pages, in the Karnataka High Court on December 8.

On December 18, the Supreme Court requested the High Court to complete the hearing within three months through a Special Bench. The hearing started on January 5 this year. The Special Bench had 41 days of sittings. The arguments of SPP G. Bhavani Singh lasted six days, and counsel for Ms. Jayalalithaa, V.K. Sasikala, V.N. Sources in Ms Jayalalithaa’s legal team said they would be more than willing to cooperate if the Supreme Court fixed a time frame for the completion of the appeal hearing. However, her lawyers said three months might be too short given the sheer size of the documents submitted before the HC.

However, the Karnataka High Court on March 11 reserved its verdict on the appeals filed by AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa and three others against their conviction in the disproportionate assets case. Justice C.R. Kumaraswamy reserved orders as formalities of filing written statements and replies were completed in the afternoon.

Earlier, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy submitted arguments, requesting the court to dismiss the appeals, and uphold the Special Court’s September 27, 2014, verdict sentencing Ms. Jayalalithaa to four-year rigorous imprisonment. S. Senthil, advocate-on-record for Ms. Jayalalithaa, submitted a brief reply to the arguments. Dr. Swamy said  the AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa approached the Karnataka High Court with “unclean hands” with the “false” claim that the Income Tax authorities had “accepted” her statements of income to be “true and genuine,” BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has stated in his written arguments submitted to the Court on 11^th march. “This is not only false, but it is knowingly false since Income Tax authorities have not made and cannot make any such admission under Section 279 or any other section of the I-T Act,” contended Dr. Swamy.

Compounding of the offence of non-filing of Income Tax returns after she paid the tax dues and penalty does not in any way represent a legal vindication of any claims of Ms. Jayalalithaa on how the income she claimed was earned, and there can’t be escape from prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act, he has stated.

In December, 2014, the AIADMK leader’s prosecution was marked by many twists and turns over the years as the accused repeatedly sought legal remedy for various issues. Here are all the latest developments in the case. The charges: Conspiracy: As CM, Jayalalithaa conspired with three others to acquire assets to the tune of Rs. 66.65 crore. Disproportionate Assets: The assets were disproportionate to her known income; Abetment: The other three abetted the offence by acting as benami owners of 32 private firms;  Prosecution's take; Modus operandi was to deposit cash in benami firms’ accounts;  Prosecution's take; The firms gave her address as theirs while opening accounts;  Prosecution's take; Ms. Jayalalithaa spent crores of rupees on renovations and constructions, her foster son’s wedding and possessed huge quantity of jewellery.

Detailed arguments against the Special Court verdict have been prepared, with Ms. Jayalalithaa’s lawyers focusing on what they term “a faulty analysis of evidence” by the lower court. Even during his arguments for her bail in the Karnataka HC, senior BJP leader and lawyer Ram Jethmalani focused on the treatment of evidence by the Special Judge.

Jayalalithaa isn’t the first politician to be convicted on corruption charges but she is the country’s first serving chief minister to be sentenced; most significant, she cannot contest elections for the next 10 years. Can Ms Jayalalithaa, who turned 66 earlier this year, survive this blow politically?

Ms Jayalalithaa is, after all, still at the height of her powers: in the last assembly elections, the AIADMK-led alliance won a whopping 203 seats in the 234-strong assembly. Earlier this year, her party won 37 of 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu.

Should Ms Jayalalithaa fail to win a reversal of the verdict in a higher court as she has done earlier, what does the future hold for her? Is there a political life after conviction – or serious charges – for politicians?

Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala is a case in point. Three years after he demitted office, he was charged in June 2008 in connection with the appointment of 3,206 junior teachers in Haryana in 1999-2000, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in January 2013. Now out of prison on bail on health grounds, Chautala  – ahead of next month’s Haryana elections - addressed a political rally in Jind that saw a substantial turnout, and his INLD, reports suggest, will make a good showing. However, the court on Friday asked him to return to jail, upset that he hadn’t heeded its directive not to participate in political activity while out on bail.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav stepped down as Bihar chief minister in 1997 when he was charged in the fodder scam. He installed his wife, Rabri Devi as CM, the party went on to win another election, and she remained in office till 2005. Last year, Mr Yadav lost his Lok Sabha membership after he was convicted. And if the party fared poorly in 2009 and 2014, it was more a result of a lack of seat adjustments: in 2004, when his party went to elections with the Congress and the Lok Jan Shakti Party, it did well, and he became union railway minister in UPA I.

And ahead of the general elections, the BJP brought back former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa into the party, even though he was yet to be cleared of all the corruption charges against him – the party had forced him to step down as CM in July 2011 due to these charges. Annoyed at the time, he quit the BJP and formed the KJP in 2012. In the May 2013 assembly elections, the KJP got 10 per cent of the votes, and the BJP lost power in the state.

Clearly, if Ms Jayalalithaa can get an acquittal in a higher court, she will still have a chance of making a comeback: if she fails, it may prove difficult to remote control the party for 10 years.

It is no surprise that Jayalalithaa is going all out to invoke god’s intervention as well. She has already used huge sums, used the party and people of Tamil Nadu through the party and TN government, money, government,  freebies political influences in Delhi, in fact she could  feel elated that many Tamils committed suicide  to  ensure her bail from Bangalore jail.

Tamil Nadu government is smartly playing sentimental and “divine” politics to coerce the Hindu minded judges to release Jayalalithaa to continue wither brand politics.

As more and more people seek clean governance, genuine politics, the role played by the central government is crucial in such matters.  If it tries to save corrupt peole, no one would trust Indian democracy, any more.