A petition filed by DMK in 1993 praying to declare as illegal the sale of TANSI land to then chief minister Jayalalithaa during 1991-96 was today disposed of by the Madras High Court after the state government submitted that the property had already been reconveyed to it.
When the petition filed by R S Bharathi of DMK came up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M.M. Sundresh, Advocate General A L Somayaji, appearing for Industries Department and the Chairman and Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation (TANSI), submitted that the land had been reconveyed to TANSI.
The petitioner had prayed to the court to declare conveying (sale of) the land owned by TANSI to Jayalalithaa and her aide Sasikala as illegal.
Later, when DMK came to power in 1996, a special court was set up to hear corruption cases related to the AIADMK regime.
Jayalalithaa and Sasikala were convicted and sentenced to two years and three years imprisonment in two TANSI land deal cases by the special court.
The prosecution charge was that the property belonging to TANSI was undervalued and sold to two firms in which Jayalalithaa and Sasikala were partners, causing a wrongful loss of over Rs. 3.5 crores to the government.
However, the high court, allowing their appeal, acquitted them in January 2000.
Challenging the acquittal, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court which upheld the high court order in November 2003.
During the hearing in the apex court, Jayalalithaa offered to return the land to TANSI.
The court asked Jayalalithaa to atone the act not only by returning the property but answering the conscience whether it was correct on her part to breach the code of conduct for ministers.
Today when the matter came up before the high court bench, it recorded the submission of the AG and disposed of the petition as infructuous.
