Monday, 29 September 2014

JJ inmate No. 7402

 

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2014/09/jj-inmate-no-7402.html

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140928/jsp/frontpage/story_18881617.jsp#.VCdM9PldXUls 

Your questions in the age of immediate disqualification

R. BALAJI
Answers to some of the questions the Jayalalithaa judgment has thrown up:
Jayalalithaa
Had Jayalalithaa been sentenced to less than 2 years, would she still have been disqualified as an MLA?
Yes. The condition of a jail term of two years or more to activate disqualification applies only to some cases. That benefit is not available to Jayalalithaa as she has been convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Mere conviction under the act is sufficient for disqualification. Even an imposition of fine will invite disqualification.
In any case, as it turned out, Jayalalithaa has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Under Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), any legislator convicted of crimes such as corruption, rape and murder stands automatically disqualified for six year from the date of release after serving the prison sentence.

Comeback queen dethroned

Challenge set to be tougher than in 2002

G.C. SHEKHAR
An AIADMK supporter cries near Jayalalithaa's Chennai home after the leader left for the Bangalore court on Saturday. (PTI)
Chennai, Sept. 27: Jayalalithaa is no stranger to her chief ministership being interrupted by the courts. In 2001, after she got herself hurriedly sworn in as chief minister although her conviction in a corruption case had disqualified the AIADMK chief from even contesting the Assembly election, the Supreme Court had unseated her.
She returned within six months after the high court overturned her conviction by the trial court in the Tansi land purchase case. That was 2002.
Times and the laws have changed since and making a comeback now will not be as easy, although Jayalalithaa's grip on her party is firmer than ever and her electoral might has just been proved in the Lok Sabha elections.
"The courts are viewing corruption by politicians more severely, as has been proved by the conviction of Om Prakash Chautala and Lalu Prasad. So Judge D'Cunha's verdict should come as no surprise as he wanted to send a strong signal about corruption in high places and the tendency of such powerful people dragging such cases for eternity. If she had completed the case much earlier without fighting the system, the courts could have been more lenient," observed a former advocate general.
Will Jayalalithaa command the same awe and respect if she governs by proxy? She will get an answer when she campaigns for the 2016 Assembly elections, which she is now unlikely to contest following the conviction in the disproportionate assets case today.
AIADMK functionaries are confident their chief is capable of converting setbacks into opportunities.
"We would be able to reach out to the people, and the harsh prison term and Rs 100-crore fine will only evoke sympathy for her. The verdict will not deter Amma's mission to roll out a slew of welfare projects to help the poor. Even if she is not in power there will be more Amma welfare schemes leaving the public in no doubt who to thank for," party spokesperson Avadi Kumar said.
Jayalalithaa needs to convince the people that she is away from the helm only for a short while and by voting for the AIADMK in 2016, they will be voting for her return at a later date. Meanwhile she will have to fight for her acquittal at the earliest, something difficult in a wealth case when the onus of proof rests with the accused to explain where she got the money. Unless she surmounts these two challenges, Jayalalithaa might be staring at a bleak political future.
At 66 and highly diabetic, she also needs to worry about her health and the absence of a successor in the AIADMK. While a resurgent DMK will try to isolate her by wooing other parties into an alliance, the BJP will be tempted to explore its chances when the AIADMK is not at its strongest. Not the rosiest of pictures for Amma, who looked unassailable till recently.
Posters welcoming Jayalalithaa line the route her convoy took from the airport to the special court outside Bangalore on Saturday
Workers of nearby factories, who are also AIADMK supporters, hold up banners in support of Jayalalithaa
A poster that shows Jayalalithaa with Hillary Clinton was among those put up by her supporters
Security personnel on the road leading to the prison complex where the court is located
AIADMK supporters, about 5,000 of whom had arrived from Tamil Nadu, line the streets
Pictures by Bangalore News Photos

Giddy and ill, fall of inmate No. 7402

K.M. RAKESH AND G.C. SHEKHAR
Sept. 27: Jayalalithaa was today unseated as Tamil Nadu chief minister and faced a possible 10-year bar on contesting elections as a Bangalore court sent her to jail with a Rs 100-crore fine for amassing unexplained wealth two decades ago.
A lawyer unconnected with the case, who was in the courtroom inside a jail complex, said Jayalalithaa, 66, felt giddy and ill as judge John Michael D'Cunha passed the verdict and was allowed to step out briefly for fresh air.
Her four-year sentence means the AIADMK leader, the first serving chief minister to be convicted of corruption, must spend at least two days in her Bangalore prison cell as inmate No. 7402 before bail becomes a possibility.
THE FLAG GOES
Jayalalithaa arrives at the court in Bangalore. As soon as she was convicted, the flag was taken off. (PTI)
Bail from the trial court was ruled out because the sentence was longer than three years. The high court next sits on Monday, giving Jayalalithaa a two-day window before it closes for the Dussehra holidays till October 5.
Her bigger worry will be the blow to her political career, and not just because conviction has automatically disqualified her as a lawmaker under a July 2013 Supreme Court ruling and ejected her as chief minister.
If she fails to secure a high court acquittal in the coming months, she will not just have to spend four years in jail but face a further six-year ban on voting or contesting elections — by when she will be 76.
As news of her conviction seeped out, an alert police officer was seen removing the national flag from Jayalalithaa's Toyota, parked inside the court complex, in symbolic recognition of her ouster as chief minister.
Her party will meet tomorrow to choose a successor. The likeliest pick is finance minister O. Panneerselvam, a loyalist who had filled in for Jayalalithaa in 2001 too when the apex court unseated her because of a prior conviction over a corrupt land deal. Jayalalithaa had returned to her post after a few months, courtesy a high court acquittal.
Jail sources in Bangalore said Jayalalithaa had been lodged alone in a cell that has a ceiling fan and given a blanket, the authorities having rejected her demand for hospital admission after the mandatory medical check-up.
It's not clear how Jayalalithaa will pay the Rs 100-crore fine: in her last election affidavit in 2011, she had declared assets worth just over Rs 50 crore.
The staggering fine comes on a week the Supreme Court slapped a compensation levy on companies while cancelling their coal block licences. The companies have been asked to pay Rs 295 for every tonne of coal they had mined. Some estimates put the cumulative blow to the companies at Rs 10,400 crore.
The 17-year-old case against Jaya related to Rs 66.65-crore worth of unaccounted wealth accumulated during her first term as chief minister between 1991 and 1996. She then drew a monthly salary of Re 1 and had no other regular source of income.
Judge D'Cunha handed a four-year term and a Rs 10-crore fine to each of her three co-conspirators: friend Sasikala and Sasikala's sister-in-law Ilavarasi and nephew V.N. Sudhakaran, who happens to be Jayalalithaa's estranged foster son.
Jayalalithaa has been convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act and two Indian Penal Code sections relating to abetment and criminal conspiracy.
The case, filed in Chennai in 1997, was shifted to Bangalore on a plea from Jayalalithaa's political opponent DMK, which feared subversion after 72 witnesses turned hostile.
The trial was held at a court in central Bangalore but the verdict was delivered in the Gandhi Bhavan courthouse inside the Parappana Agrahara jail complex off the Bangalore-Hosur Road, where Jayalalithaa is now lodged. The venue shift came on an appeal from Jayalalithaa, who cited her Z-plus security.
She had made just one court appearance during the trial, for four days in 2011, after one of the 14 judges who heard the case put his foot down.
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Balance of kick shifts

RASHEED KIDWAI
New Delhi, Sept. 27: The chimes they are a-tollin' — not from political ivory towers but from unsparing courtrooms.
Until the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment last year disqualifying MPs and MLAs instantly on conviction for some offences, it had been up to the political leadership to decide whether a chief minister in crisis would survive or face the axe.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi used varying yardsticks — largely influenced by their comfort levels and power equations — to sack or retain satraps caught up in scandals or controversies.
How Nehru judged a tainted chief minister was on display between 1952 and 1964 when Punjab chief minister Partap Singh Kairon got sucked into controversies. Till his death, Nehru, who admired Kairon's vision of a fruit-laden Punjab with mile upon mile of oranges, grapes and peaches like those the chief minister had seen in California, repeatedly exonerated the Punjab politician.
Nehru eventually set up a commission of inquiry in 1963. Once the committee filed its report, Kairon resigned. By then, Nehru had passed away.
Nehru's successor Lal Bahadur Shastri was expected to be even-handed. As Prime Minister, Shastri displayed zero tolerance towards those indicted by government agencies. Biren Mitra, the only Bengali chief minister of what was then Orissa, had to go when the CBI indicted him. But Shastri protected S. Nijalingappa and K.B. Sahay, who were seen as his supporters, when controversies swirled around them.
Congress old-timers feel both Nehru and Shastri were "liberal" in accommodating "diversities". But the veterans conceded that they made selective use of federal authority to maintain their hegemony.
The Indira era saw Congress chief ministers having little control over their careers. Indira chose chief ministers on the basis of their loyalty towards her. A.R. Antulay was chief minister of Maharashtra when a scam relating to the purchase of cement was unearthed.
Antulay was then busy bringing back from the UK the "sword of Bhawani" that reportedly belonged to Chhattrapati Shivaji. Using diplomatic channels, Antulay had managed an appointment with the Queen in May 1982 but he had to take the exit door in February as the burden of the cement scandal became unbearable.
Antulay's successor was a lesser-known Babasaheb Bhosale. Lore is that Indira's pen screeched to a halt on a line in a dossier that mentioned he was the son-in-law of a Rajya Sabha member who had remained loyal to Indira during the 1969 Congress split.
Between 1985 and 1989, Rajiv created a record of sorts by changing 22 chief ministers.
When the Churhat lottery scam undermined Arjun Singh's position as chief minister, Rajiv dispatched his minister Buta Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad to Bhopal. Arjun resisted the Delhi order to step down but relented when Buta reportedly showed him some classified files.
Although lacking in stature, P.V. Narasimha Rao, too, used his political authority to secure resignations of party chief ministers. In November 1992, Rao summoned S. Bangarappa, asking him to resign in the wake of a report submitted by the CBI that looked into corruption charges.
Bangrappa resigned and subsequently changed parties till he was acquitted by a court after 18 long years. His son Madhu alleges that Rao was influenced by M. Veerappa Moily and Margaret Alva to hand over the probe to the CBI.
I.K. Gujral and the rest of the United Front had to sweat while making Lalu Prasad resign as chief minister of Bihar following the fodder scam. Lalu resigned but made his wife Rabri Devi the chief minister.
Like Shastri, Sonia, too, tried to give an impression of being even-handed. But her handling of the tainted left a lot to be desired. Ashok Chavan was made to resign in connection with the Adarsh scam even though his name did not figure in the FIR. Sonia insisted that public perception mattered most.
However, the yardstick was waived in case of Vir Bhadra Singh, who survived as chief minister of Himachal Pradesh.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140928/jsp/frontpage/story_18881640.jsp#.VCdN3PldXUk

-- 
S. Kalyanaraman


 परोपकाराय फलन्ति वृक्षा: परोपकाराय वहन्ति नद्यः।
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They Scratch & hurt you, but in the end you are polished and they are finished. ''
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