Jayalalithaa appeal: Karnataka ready with appeal

Chennai, May 23: The advocate general of Karnataka Professor Ravi Varma Kumar has given his nod to file an appeal in the J Jayalalithaa case.

The opinion was given just hours before Jayalalithaa was set to be sworn in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu yet again.

The opinion given by the AG is a formality that is required before the state goes in appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict which acquitted Jayalalithaa of all charges in the disproportionate assets case.

Ten point appeal:

The AG in his opinion has listed out ten points including the mathematical errors in the judgment which resulted in the acquittal of Jayalalithaa and three others- Shashikala Natrajan, Ilavarasi and Sudhakaran.

The opinion of the AG also states that the appeal needs to be filed as soon as possible. It has suggested that the Karnataka government file the appeal before the Vacation Bench of the Supreme Court and send a strong message that the state is against corruption.
The law ministry is now finalizing the appeal.

Special Public Prosecutor B V Acharya will play a key role in preparing the appeal. It was he who had initially pointed out the arithmetic errors in the judgment of the High Court. He had informed that this is a fit case for an appeal and was confident of the order of the High Court being reversed in the Supreme Court.

Stay unlikely:

While the first of the prayers in the appeal would be to stay the verdict of the High Court, it appears that the Supreme Court is not likely to grant this prayer. If the Supreme Court stays the verdict of the High Court that would mean the trial court order of conviction would be in force and Jayalalithaa would have to step down as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. She is being sworn in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu today.

However Karnataka is not too bothered about the stay for the moment and would focus on having the appeal disposed off. The verdict of the Supreme Court is final and after this there are no more appeal provisions remaining for both Jayalalithaa and the state of Karnataka.

OneIndia News