New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined
to stay the disproportionate assets case against former Tamil
Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa pending in a Karnataka court.
A bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma
refused to stay the trial, which is scheduled to commence from
tomorrow, after senior counsel Nageswar Rao, appearing for the
former Chief Minister, contended that the case cannot be
allowed to proceed without rectifying errors in the translated
documents.
The apex court permitted translators to assist the court
in translating the original documents.
Jayalalithaa had contended that the documents had been
translated from Tamil to English in a distorted manner to
falsely implicate her.
The documents have been translated from Tamil to English
as the case had been transferred out of the state.
She claimed if the errors were not rectified, it would
result in miscarriage of justice.
Besides Jayalalithaa, the other accused in the case are
Sasikala, V.N. Sudhagaran, Ialavarasi and T.T.V. Dinakaran.
In her special leave petition challenging the Karnataka
High Court order dated November 24 allowing the trial to
proceed, Jayalalithaa said she and others are being prosecuted
on the basis of translation of depositions of witnesses which
were originally recorded in Tamil when the case was pending in
Chennai, Tamil Nadu."
She claimed the quality of translation was very poor and
the translation of evidence from Tamil to English was done
very carelessly.
The translation was distorted and did not reflect the
true evidence recorded in Tamil, Jayalalithaa claimed.
According to her, at many places, the evidence which was
not available in Tamil was introduced in the garb of
translation clearly to implicate her, in that there was no
incriminating evidence against her in the Tamil deposition,
but in the English translation of the evidence, incriminating
evidence had been "maliciously inserted."
She contended if the errors were not rectified, it would
lead to flagrant violation of her fundamental right to a free
and fair trial.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 22:49