Chennai: The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed as not maintainable a PIL challenging the transfer of disproportionate wealth case against Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to Karnataka and slapped a cost of Rs 10,000 on the petitioner, a senior lawyer, deprecating that endeavours only to gain publicity should be nipped in the bud.
A bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice TS Sivagnanam, said the petitioner (PR Krishnan), being a senior advocate, ought to have great responsibility rather than filing this "misconceived" writ petition.
"We are unequivocally of the view that there are endeavours only to gain publicity, which is considered to be strongly deprecated and thus such a proceeding is complete waste of judicial time and must be nipped in the bud," the bench said rejecting the PIL at the initial stage itself.
The petitioner contended that the transfer of the trial from Tamil Nadu to Karnataka carried out under the order of the Supreme Court was not in accordance with law.
He alleged the trial Judge (who convicted her) was not fair and the detention of Jayalalithaa in Karnataka jail was illegal.
He further claimed there was "collective displeasure and inexplicable uneasiness in the minds of neutral persons but no one come forward to question the legality, correctness, principals of these illegal acts even when the state of Karnataka was in the process of preferring an appeal (against the Karnataka High Court order acquitting Jayalalithaa)."
The court said the petitioner was seeking to come to the rescue of Jayalalithaa by claiming that being a citizen of the state he was entitled to file PIL in respect of correctness and propriety of the proceedings her.
Stating that first of all the approach by the advocate to move the Madras High Court itself was wrong, the bench in its order said that "in our view, firstly from the premises approaching this court is fallacious. Dr. JJ is not devoid of ability to defend herself and did defend herself."
The bench then reminded that the transfer of the case was in pursuance to the order of the Supreme Court and the post-trial appeal was filed in which Jayalalithaa succeeded on merits.
Stating that preferring an appeal against the order of the Karnataka High Court was a separate matter, the bench dismissed the petition with cost.
Jayalalithaa was convicted by the Bengaluru special judge and sentenced to four years imprisonment in the Rs 66.65 crore wealth disproportionate to known sources of her income when she was chief minister from 1991-95 but the Karnataka High Court, allowing her appeal, acquitted her of all charges.
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