advertisement
Jailed AIADMK leader VK Sasikala on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court seeking re-examination of its verdict holding her guilty and sentencing her to four-year imprisonment in a graft case.
The review petition filed by Sasikala and two others – VN Sudhakaran, Jayalalithaa's foster son, and Elavarasi, widow of Sasikala's elder brother – has challenged the setting aside of Karnataka High Court verdict acquitting her and restoring the trial court verdict in toto.
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister late J Jayalalithaa was also an accused in the case.
An advocate privy to the review petition said Sasikala has relied on an earlier apex court verdict of 1991 in which after the death of a prime accused, the proceeding against the co-accused was also abated in a corruption case.
Sasikala was convicted in the case by apex court on 14 February.
The apex court had set aside the Karnataka High Court order acquitting all the four accused and “restored in toto” the trial court's decision in the 19-year-old disproportionate assets case.
Sasikala had been in the jail in 1996 when the case was registered and later in 2014 after the Special trial court convicted and awarded a four-year sentence with a fine of Rs 10 crore. Jayalalithaa was then awarded four-year jail term, besides a fine of Rs 100 crore.
The apex court, which abated the proceedings against Jayalalithaa who breathed her last on 5 December last year, held that the criminal conspiracy was hatched at her Poes Garden residence in Chennai.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)