14 February 2017
The Supreme Court of India convicted V K Sasikala in a 19-year-old corruption case that also involved late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. The two judges hearing the case, Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy, directed Sasikala and her two relatives, V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, to surrender before the trial court in Bengaluru and serve the remaining part of four-year jail term. The case against Jayalalithaa stands abated because of her demise in December 2016.
This judgement ends a political crisis in Tamil Nadu where Sasikala was trying to become Chief Minister, ousting the interim Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam. Sasikala will be disqualified from holding any public office for at least 10 years. Sasikala is not expected to take it lying low. She has chosen, her confidante, Edapadi K Palanisamy, as the leader of the party. She will then be able to run the government from the jail. At the same time, she expelled O. Panneerselvam from the party.
“A few disquieting thoughts that have lingered and languished in distressed silence in mentation demand expression at the parting with a pulpit touch. Hence, this supplement.
The attendant facts and circumstances encountered as above, demonstrate a deep rooted conspiratorial design to amass vast assets without any compunction and hold the same through shell entities to cover up the sinister trail of such illicit acquisitions and deceive and delude the process of law. Novelty in the outrages and the magnitude of the nefarious gains as demonstrated by the revelations in the case are, to say the least, startling.”
