AIADMK General Secretary Jayalalithaa on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against a Karnataka High Court order rejecting her plea for bail and suspension of sentence handed down by a special court in Bangalore in the disproportionate assets case.

In her application, Jayalalithaa said she was a 66-year-old woman with ailments and her appeal in the High Court would not be decided for the next four years at least.

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Jayalalithaa, who was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister at the time of her conviction, was sentenced to four years’ simple imprisonment and imposed a hefty fine of Rs. 100-crore for offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Her co-accused — Sasikala Natarajan, V. Sudhakaran and J. Elavarasi — were sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 10 crore each.

In consequence, Jayalalithaa was automatically disqualified as an MLA and lost her position as Chief Minister.

The three-time former Chief Minister is lodged at the Parappana Agrahara prison in Bangalore.

The AIADMK chief, who has been behind bars for the last 12 days, urged the apex court to grant an urgent hearing on her plea during the mentioning hour on Friday.

Jayalalithaa has pleaded that she has been sentenced only for four years in the case and she is also suffering from various ailments as grounds for her immediate relief.

She said that as Chief Minister she did not misuse her powers in this case.

The former Chief Minister also cited grounds of being a senior citizen and a woman for getting out of jail.

The 66—year—old veteran politician was denied bail by the High Court on October 7 despite the Special Public Prosecutor not objecting to grant of conditional bail to her.

In her petitions seeking immediate bail, Jayalalithaa maintained that the charge of amassing wealth against her during 1991—96 when she was the Chief Minister for the first time was false and that she had acquired property through legal means.

She also contended that the trial court had overlooked several judgments and not considered the binding nature of various income tax orders and decisions of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, which had accepted the income and the level of expenditure pleaded by her.

Justice A V Chandrashekara of the Karnataka High Court, who passed the interim order rejecting her bail plea, said there are "no grounds" to grant her relief. Corruption amounts to “violation of human rights” and leads to economic imbalance, the High Court judge had observed.
(The Hindu)