In a major setback to Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, the Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated its earlier order that stayed the ongoing trial before a special Bangalore court in a disproportionate assets case against her.
While recalling its May 26 order by which the trial against her was stayed, a bench headed by Justice Vikramajit Sen also dismissed Jayalalithaa?s petition for stalling her trial till the lower court decided the plea of Chennai-based Lex Property Development. The company had claimed that the properties, which have been attached by the authorities as ?benami? holdings of Jayalalithaa, in fact, belonged to it and said this plea be decided first before the lower court proceeded with the trial in the assets case.
Various companies have filed civil proceedings in the same court alleging that some of the properties, shown as part of the disproportionate assets of the three-time chief minister, actually belonged to them.
Jayalalithaa faces charges of accumulation of over R66 crore worth of assets disproportionate to her known sources of income during her tenure as the TN chief minister in the early 1990s. The charges are that several properties including farmlands and a Nilgiris tea estate acquired by Jayalalithaa in 1991-96 cannot be accounted by her known sources of income.
