Jaya's plea against governor dismissed

The Madras high court on Wednesday dismissed three separate writ petitons filed by former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaram challenging the state governor's power to prosecute her in cases relating to her Kodaikanal hotel, the Tansi land deal and the her wealth which was allegedly disproportionate to her income.

Jayalalitha is the prime accused in all the three cases. Three more corruption cases are pending before courts of the special judges in Madras.

In the hotel case, Jayalalitha has been charged with violating building norms in Kodaikanal. In the Tansi case, she has been charged with purchasing the state-government owned Tansi land at Guindy here for Jaya Publications, a firm in which she and her close associate Sasikala Natarajan were partners.

Justice E Padmanabhan ruled that the governor enjoyed immunity from judicial scrutiny under Article 361 of the Constitution. The governor was the competent authority to sanction the prosecution of chief ministers and former chief ministers, he held.