Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Sep 28 : An ambitious career has been put on stand by mode thanks to the verdict of the Special Court in Bangalore which held J Jayalalithaa, now the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu guilty of graft charges. There are many firsts in this case- she is the first sitting chief minister to be convicted and lose her seat, she is also the first chief minister to be jailed twice on graft charges.
For J Jayalalithaa the battle ahead is a long and hard one. The immediate impact of the verdict is that her membership to the Tamil Nadu assembly stands disqualified which would mean that she is no longer the chief minister. Secondly she will not be able to contest the elections for the next ten years. In the event of a conviction the rules mandate that she cannot contest an election for 6 years. Also she has been sentenced to 4 years imprisonment which adds to the 6 years making it ten.
Her next battle will be before the Karnataka High Court where she will have to seek a stay on the order of the Special Court. She will seek stay of both her conviction and also sentence. In the event of the sentence being stayed she will be able to walk out of jail where she has been lodged since last night. If her conviction is also stayed then she will be able to contest the elections and also reclaim her post of Chief Minister until the matter is disposed off finally.
However the normal precedent in courts hearing the appeals have been that the sentences are stayed, but normally they do not interfere with the conviction. Jayalalithaa will however have to wait at least another three days to file an appeal. The High Court which is on vacation goes can hear the matter on the vacation Bench which assembles on Tuesday.
This would mean that she will have to file an appeal on Monday and seek early hearing of the matter and request the court to take it up on Tuesday. It would be at the discretion of the Chief Justice to hear the matter on the date he choses.
Following the hearing there were very emotional scenes by her followers. She is considered to be a very tall leader in Tamil Nadu and what her followers worry the most is that she would be compared to Lalu Prasad Yadav a former Chief Minister who has also been convicted in a graft case. However her followers are hoping that she is out on bail by Tuesday and can return to Chennai. Like Yadav she will continue to run the party. However in the case of Jayalalithaa she will run a proxy government as her party is in power. The run up to the 2016 elections in Tamil Nadu will however be interesting. If her conviction is set aside by then, she will be able to contest the elections. However in case the conviction stays then she would not be allowed to contest, but there is no bar from her campaigning for her party leaders.
While her arch rivals the DMK will go all out and take advantage of her conviction, she is will play the sympathy card. Unfortunately in our country this has worked a great deal where a large number of people in the lower middle class believe that such convictions are a result of political vendetta. Lalu Yadav despite a conviction in the corruption case successfully managed to come out a winner in the recent by-elections in Bihar which only goes on to show that corruption is not an issue at least in the non urban areas.
Legal experts say that the order passed by the Special Court is a water tight one. It has imposed a huge fine of Rs 100 crore on Jayalalithaa apart from the four year sentence. A lot of her followers were hoping that the sentence would be three years. The law states that if a person is convicted to a term of 3 years and below she is entitled to apply for bail before the Special Court itself. In an event of a sentence of above 3 years, the convicted person will need to approach a higher court in appeal and seek bail.
Apart from the legalities there was enough and more drama yesterday after she was taken into jail. At the end of the hearing her lawyers pleaded for leniency. Her advocates told the court that she should be allowed to stay in the hospital and also be granted Z plus security. However the court observed that these are two issues that need to be dealt with by the prison authorities. Once she was taken to jail, the prison authorities told her that she could stay in the hospital and they had already booked a ward at the Jayadeva Hospital. However surprisingly she refused any such treatment and said that she would stay in jail. Many view this as a sympathy seeking tactic.