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Notices issued against Jaya, Selvaganapathy

Special Judge V Radhakrishnan, who is trying cases of corruption involving the previous All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government, today ordered the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption to issue notices on a petition filed by former chief minister J Jayalalitha and her cabinet colleague T M Selvaganapathy. They had asserted that the court had no jurisdiction to try the Pleasant Stay Hotel case since the state assembly had regularised its construction.

The trial in the case had begun on December 21. Besides Jayalalitha and Selvaganapathy, former Indian Administrative Service official H M Pandey, hotel Executive-Director Rakesh Mittal and Chairman Palai Shanmugam are accused in the case. The notice is returnable on February 5.

In their petition, Jayalalitha and Selvaganapathy said the hotel management had obtained permission to construct two storeys, but constructed seven floors and later sought the state government's assistance to relax the rules and regularise the modified structure.

They said the state government had moved a bill in the assembly to amend section 217 of the District Municipalities Act. The entire House voted for the amendment whose purpose, according to them, was to help the management build seven floors though the rules prohibited it.

They said the legislature had regularised the construction, and hence, the motive for the amendment was irrelevant. It was significant and relevant that the legislation was the product of assembly proceedings in which they had also taken part, they added.

They said no evidence was collected to show that they had even known Mittal then and no allegation of corruption had been made against them.

Jayalalitha and Selvaganapathy recalled that in 1971, the Supreme Court had ordered the eviction of one Varadarajapillai, a tenant at Globe Theatre in Madras, and sought that the property be handed over to its owner.

They alleged that the then chief minister M Karunanidhi, to avoid the situation arising out of the apex court's verdict, had got a legislation passed in the assembly to amend section 12 of the City Tenant Protection Act with retrospective effect, though the move had been objected to by the IAS officers concerned.

They contended that they were bringing this to the notice of the court to demonstrate that the government's views on several issues might differ from those of the court. This did not mean that an ulterior motive should be inferred and that the court should entertain the prosecution. This was not permissible in law, they argued.

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