Bengaluru: The then DMK government had brought "pressure" on investigating officials to implicate her in the disproportionate assets case, AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa on Thursday alleged before the Karnataka High Court special bench hearing her appeals challenging her conviction.
The quickness with which the Department of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) under DMK rule filed charge sheet against her raised several questions about fair and unbiased investigation, L Nageswar Rao, counsel of the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, told the court.
"Normally, after the filing of FIR it takes three to four years to file charge sheet of a crime of such proportion as this but the DVAC did it in just nine months. This raises questions about fair and unbiased investigation into the case," Rao said.
The bench is hearing appeals by Jayalalithaa and three others challenging their September 27 last conviction by a special court here for alleged accumulation of assets disproportionate to her known sources of income during 1991-96 when she was chief minister for the first time.
The bench has been set up at the direction of the Supreme Court on December 18 to decide the appeals in three months. Rao also submitted that the then DMK government had appointed and deployed 150 police personnel to investigate the case in an "unprecedented" move.
He also submitted that N Nallamma Naidu was reappointed as the Investigating Officer in 2006 when DMK returned to power, raising suspicion that the then government had political intentions to implicate Jayalalithaa.
Naidu was discontinued as the investigating officer by the previous Jayalalithaa government, prior to 2006 DMK regime, Rao submitted. Rao submitted that the trial court has overlooked several judgements and has not considered the binding nature of various income tax orders and decisions of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal which had accepted the income and the level of expenditure pleaded by Jayalalithaa.
Rao said the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal considered the Rs 2.15 crore demand draft as gift amount, not as a source of income and hence, professional tax was levied on the amount, which the trial court overlooked.
Similarly, during investigations DVAC did not register the statements of 75 donors, who had gifted cash to Jayalalithaa, in its charge sheet nor did the trial court seek for this detail, Rao said.
The donors had stated that they had in fact gifted cash to Jayalalithaa, he contended. Jayalalithaa and three others, including her confidante Sasikala, were held guilty of corruption and awarded four years jail term by the special court here, which had also slapped a fine of Rs 100 crore on her and Rs 10 crore each on the others.
A Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu, had granted conditional bail to Jayalalithaa with the condition that hearing on her appeal against conviction in the high court should be completed in three months from December 18.
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