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Jayalalithaa cleared in corruption cases

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (AIADMK) leader J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday cleared the first hurdle in her path to resuming her seat as Tamil Nadu chief minister by securing favourable verdicts in the corruption cases against her.

While AIADMK leaders and cadres alike thronged Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence after hearing the news, across the state, celebrating party supporters burst crackers and distributed sweets.

Justice N Dinakar of the Madras High Court cleared the former Tamil Nadu chief minister in all three cases pending against her.

"The prosecution has failed to prove the charges against her and her co-accused in the cases," Justice Dinakar said in his separate judgments, two of them relating to the purchase of land owned by public sector Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation (Tansi) when Jayalalithaa was chief minister in 1992, and the Pleasant Stay Hotel case, in which her government was purported to have bent building rules to favour a private hotelier.

The judge also acquitted Jayalalithaa's live-in confidante Sasikala Natarajan, former ministers Mohammed Asif and T M Selvaganapathy, and two IAS officers convicted in the Tansi cases.

The arguments on appeals, lasting 17-days, mainly centred on whether Tansi was the property of the state government and if purchase of the property by firms owned by Jayalalithaa and her close friend Sasikala Natarajan attracted Section169 of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to public servants purchasing or bidding for government property.

In October last year, a special court in Madras had sentenced her and five others to three years rigorous imprisonment for wrongdoing in the deal.

Special Judge P Anbazhagan had found Jayalalithaa guilty of criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, and Section 409, dealing with criminal breach of trust by a 'public servant', which Jayalalithas was as chief minister.

The judgment had disqualified Jayalalithaa from contesting the state assembly polls in May earlier this year.

In the Pleasant Stay Hotel case, Special Judge V Radhakrishnan had, in February last year, convicted and sentenced Jayalalithaa and four others for favouring the owner of the hotel, located in Kodaikanal, in return of monetary considerations when she was the chief minister from 1991-96.

Jayalalithaa was sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment in the case.

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