Special court adjourns Sasikala's trial to January 30

The special court trying the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday adjourned to January 30, the proceedings against her close aide and co-accused Sasikala Natarajan, concerning the translation process.

Special Court judge, B M Mallikarjunaiah adjourned the matter after counsel for Sasikala, C Manishankar orally submitted that since the Karnataka high court had granted six weeks interim stay on the proceedings which was in force till January 30, the case may be taken up on that day.

To this, Assistant Public Prosecutor Sandesh Chowta stated that since the matter was coming up for hearing in high court on January 20, the orders on the matter may be passed that day and this court may hear the case on January 23 or 24. At this, the court adjourned the matter to January 30. The case relates to accumulation of wealth allegedly disproportionate to Jayalalithaa's known sources of income when she was chief minister in 1991-96.

Earlier, counsels for the all the four accused in the case (Jayalalithaa, Sasikala Natarajan, V Sudhakaran and Elavarasi) filed petitions seeking exemption from their personal appearance for the day which was allowed by the court. On December 19, Justice B V Pinto had granted six weeks interim stay on the proceedings against Sasikala.

Sasikala's counsel Thulasi had filed a criminal petition on December 16 seeking translated versions of questions framed by the court be kept ready in Tamil. On December 8, Sasikala's counsel had filed an interlocutory application, seeking a direction to the interpreter to keep a translated version of questions framed by the court ready in Tamil and then record the answers in Tamil, which could then be translated to English.

The special court had, however, granted him a week's time to move the high court as against three weeks sought and adjourned recording of Sasikala's statement under Sec 313 of CrPC (power to examine the accused) to December 21.

The court had earlier adjourned the case to December 8 for questioning Sasikala after the four-day deposition of Jayalalithaa last month, during which she answered 1,339 questions framed by the judge. The case was shifted to Bangalore by the Supreme Court on a petition by DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan.