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Jaya's discharge from coal import deal case challenged

The Tamil Nadu government today moved the Madras High Court challenging Wednesday's verdict by a special judge Madras, discharging AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalitha and her erstwhile cabinet colleague, V R Nedunchezhiyan from the coal import deal case.

Special Judge-II V Radhakrishnan, trying corruption cases during the previous AIADMK regime, had discharged the two leaders from the case which relates to import of substandard coal from Australia and south-east Asia for the Tamil Nadu State Electricity Board during her regime, causing a loss of Rs 6.5 crore.

In its revision petition, the state Crime Branch police, which probed the case, contended that the special judge's observation that Jayalalitha and Nedunchezhiyan, the then finance minister, had no link with the deal, was groundless.

The special judge's observation that the two leaders might not not have gone through the files, including the "missing pages" containing the objections to the deal made by then the PWD secretary, V Sundaram, before affixing their signatures clearing the deal, was incorrect, the crime branch contended.

Quoting extensively from the original complaint made by the Janata Party President, Dr Subramanian Swamy, the crime branch petition said Jayalalitha had cleared the deal on July 10, 1993, within 24 hours of the finance and public works ministers' signing the files. The special judge had not taken this into consideration, it contended.

Dr Swamy's complaint had pointed out that she certainly had the opportunity to read the notes circulated by the Public Works Department in which a reference had been made to Sundaram's objections, but she had chosen to ignore them.

The Crime Branch petition contended that the special judge had failed to take into account Sundaram's allegation that "collusion at the highest level," involving Jayalalitha, Public Works Minister S Kannappan, Chief Secretary T V Venkatraman and Finance Secretary N Narayanan, had taken place in the clearance of the deal.

The petition also contended that the special judge had overlooked Venkatraman's statement before a city magistrate wherein he had stated that Jayalalitha had ignored his note of caution on the deal, sent to her on July 7, 1993. According to his statement, on the same day after he sent the note, Kannappan rang him up and said Jayalalitha had wanted the deal to be cleared despite his note.

This clearly indicated that Jayalalitha was interested in the clearance of the deal and that she was part of the conspiracy cited in the case, the Crime Branch argued.

The petition said the special judge had not taken into account the fact that the decision to import coal had been taken though there was no need to do so at that time. Also, indigenous coal had been available at a lesser price, it pointed out.

The Crime Branch petition also pointed out that the import of coal had not been channelised through public sector organisations like the Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation or ACC Babcock Ltd, which had vast experience in such imports. The Centre's suggestion to route the import through ACC Babcock Ltd had been disregarded, it added.

Following the special judge discharging Jayalalitha and Nedunchezhiyan, charges had been framed against all the nine other accused in the case on Wednesday last.

UNI

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