Updated by admin on
Tuesday, April 08, 2014 02:49 AM IST
Bengaluru:
Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's close friend Sasikala Natarajan, her nephew Sudhakaran and sister-in-law J Ilavarasi attended the special court hearing here on April 7 in connection with the wealth case against Jayalalithaa and others.
The three appeared before Special Court Judge John Michael Cunha, who had last week directed their appearance.
On April 3, the judge had initially directed Jayalalithaa herself to also appear before the court but later altered his order, granting her exemption after the Karnataka High Court registry said it would not be possible to provide her security at short notice.
He had issued the order to personally interact with the accused regarding pendency of a case related to the assets case in the Madras High Court, saying it was suppressed by them.
Judge Cunha had said that pendency of the case came to light only when a counsel for the accused produced the April 2 order of the High Court on an appeal filed in 2000 by the accused questioning attachment of certain properties made by a Chennai court during July 2000.
He also noticed that even the Special Public Prosecutor, who was to represent the prosecution DVAC (Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption) in all cases regarding the disproportionate assets cases as per a Supreme Court order, was not aware of pendency of the appeal.
When the court resumed hearing on April 7, the judge asked Sasikala why SPP Bhavani Singh was not given the notice to represent the prosecution in the case before the Madras High Court.
She said, “I was not briefed properly by our lawyer who had resigned from the case earlier.”
The Judge adjourned the matter without specifying any date.
The disproportionate assets case was shifted to Bengaluru in 2003 following a Supreme Court directive on a petition by DMK which contended that a fair trial was not possible in Chennai during Jayalalithaa’s tenure as Chief Minister.
