Supreme Court: Writing down a hefty 570-page judgement, the Bench of P.C. Ghose and Amitava Roy, JJ restored the conviction order of the trial court against Sasikala Natarajan, V.N. Sudhakaran and J. Elavarasi for holding disproportionate assets. All 3 were awarded the sentence of 4 years each by the Trial Court.
The judgement where the Court said that the present case demonstrates a deep rooted conspiratorial design to amass vast assets without any compunction and hold the same through shell entities to cover up the sinister trail of such illicit acquisitions and deceive and delude the process of law, came at the time when Sasikala was eyeing the post of Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
The Court noticed that J. Jayalalitha, who was the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister at the relevant time had come into possession of assets worth Rs.53,60,49,954.00, disproportionate to the known sources of her income during the check period and had got the same dispersed in the names of Sasikala, Sudhakaran and Elavarasi and the firms & companies involved to hold these on her behalf with a masked front.
The trial court had held that private individuals can be prosecuted by the Court on the ground that they have abetted the act of criminal misconduct falling under Section 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 committed by the public servant. Setting aside the decision of the Karnataka High Court in Selvi J. Jayalalitha v. State, 2015 SCC OnLine Kar 124, decided on 11.05.2015, where the respondents were acquitted of all criminal charges, the Court held that the Trial Court is correct in the face of the overwhelming evidence indicating the circumstances of active abetment and conspiracy by Sasikala, Sudhakaran and Elavarasi in the commission of the offences under Section 13(1)(e) of the 1988 Act.
The Court further said that corruption is a vice of insatiable avarice for self-aggrandizement by the unscrupulous, taking unfair advantage of their power and authority and those in public office also, in breach of the institutional norms, mostly backed by minatory loyalists. Both the corrupt and the corrupter are indictable and answerable to the society and the country as a whole. [State of Karnataka v. Selvi. J. Jayalalitha, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 134, decided on 14.02.2017]
