Move case along

Questions about the J Jayalalithaa judgment

One of the strengths of the Indian legal system is that it contains many opportunities for review. Thus, even when major clerical errors appear to the layman's eye to be manifest in a judgment, as is the case with the judgment in the disproportionate assets case that acquitted former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, there is legal recourse that can be taken. For the sake of the integrity of the political process and to ensure respect for the sanctity of the law, whatever legal recourse is possible in this case should indeed be taken. The facts, as reported, are startling. Karnataka public prosecutor B V Acharya has said there is a major error in calculation, in which the amount of loans taken by the defendants from nationalised banks is calculated to total Rs 24.17 crore when, in fact, it was Rs 10.67 crore. Mr Acharya and others, including Ms Jayalalithaa's political opponents in Tamil Nadu, claim that this error of calculation, together with some other smaller tweaks, means that the value of the disproportionate assets, examined by the court to come to its verdict, was Rs 2.82 crore instead of Rs 16.32 crore. This is a large disparity.

Further, as Mr Acharya points out, it might be large enough to alter the judgment given the reasoning that the court used. The Karnataka court's judgment indicated that the disproportionate component of the defendants' income was only just over eight per cent of the whole. The court determined that precedents were such that a disproportionate component of less than 10 per cent could and should be ignored in such cases. However, if the calculation error that Mr Acharya claims is corrected in the manner he suggests, then the disproportionate component was in fact over 75 per cent - which would reverse Ms Jayalalithaa's acquittal. This is a thorny legal problem. The Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) provides for a judgment, once signed, to be revised in order to correct an administrative or clerical error. Different legal authorities have different opinions on the applicability of that element of the CrPC to this case. But the question remains: something must be done. The Karnataka government must move the case forward in whatever manner it deems best - whether looking again to the Karnataka court to revise its judgment under Section 362 of the CrPC, or appealing to the Supreme Court. At any rate, a stay order from the Supreme Court on the Karnataka court's judgement appears obtainable.

This unfortunate turn of events betrays the lack of capacity that bedevils even India's most respected courts, and even when dealing with high-profile cases. The judgment in this case runs into nearly a thousand pages, and the claimed error is on just one of them. It requires complex accounting and in some cases a deep understanding of banking and risk management. It is, however, being produced by a single understaffed judge under high pressure. This very visible controversy should shake up the political and legal establishment. It is past time to expand capacity at the high and district court level manifold. Judges should have more supporting capacity so that such errors are eliminated. Many now fear that in less high-profile cases, errors of this apparent magnitude might not be corrected - or even noticed.