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Muthiah amasses 25 months in prison

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Former Tamil Nadu assembly speaker Sedapatti R Muthiah was on Wednesday sentenced to 25 months in prison for amassing property worth Rs 4.5 million disproportionate to his known sources of income while in office.

Muthiah is the first former speaker in the country to be convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. He stands barred from contesting legislative election, which is due for the state assembly next year.

Muthiah is the fourth All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham leader to be convicted under the PCA, after party chief and former chief minister Jayalalitha and her erstwhile ministerial colleagues, T M Selvaganapathy and Nagoor Meeran.

A former legislator, Malliga, was earlier convicted, but this is the first time the sentence has the effect of debarring the convict from contesting election. As is known, the two terms of one-year each, to run concurrently, handed down to Jayalalitha in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case, has since led to different interpretations on the two-year sentencing required for debarment, pending her appeal to the Madras high court.

Sentenced along with Muthiah are his sons Arivazhagan and Manimaran. They too will serve similar terms under Section 109 of the Indian Penal Code.

Muthiah was sentenced as the prime accused under Section 13 (2) read with 13 (1) (e) of the PCA. Under these, the onus of proof for source of wealth rests with the accused.

However, S Sambandam, one of the three special judges hearing the corruption cases against Jayalalitha and the rest, acquitted Muthiah's wife Sakuntala, who was the fourth accused. The judge also gave the three convicts time till April 10 to appeal against his verdict, which will be held in abeyance until then.

Muthiah said he would move the high court.

Interestingly, this was the case for which Muthiah had to sacrifice his ministerial berth at the Centre weeks after joining the 1998 Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Though the state government's directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption had charge sheeted him on the eve of the Lok Sabha poll on February 13, it was three weeks after he had been in office that the trial court found a prima facie case against him and framed charges.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's insistence that Muthiah step down was among the early reasons for the estrangement between the two parties, which led to the collapse of the Vajpayee government a year later. Now, with the trial court convicting Muthiah, the BJP leadership and Prime Minister Vajpayee can feel justified in their insistence that he quit.

Incidentally, the trial court ordering an unusual prison term of 25 months makes it much more difficult for Muthiah to contest the assembly election due next year, unless his appeal is heard and decided in his favour before that. As is known, the Representation of the People's Act prescribes a two-year prison term for debarment of PCA convicts.

Questions had arisen about the applicability of this provision in the case of Jayalalitha, as she would be running the two one-year terms concurrently if the trial court verdict is upheld. While one section argued that she would be deemed to have been imprisoned only for a year, others referred to the text of law, which mentioned only 'sentencing', which in effect is two years, and not 'imprisonment', which alone would be one year.

No such facility is available to Muthiah now, though even in Jayalalitha's case, there are those who question the propriety of the state governor, if not the President, having to administer the oath of ministerial office to a PCA convict, if it came to that.

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