Anbazhagan files plea seeking to intervene as party respondent

DMK General Secetary K Anbazhagan today sought permission before a special bench of the Karnataka High Court to intervene as party respondent to assist the Special Public Prosecutor in the disproportionate assets case against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa.
"I should be permitted to intervene as party respondent to the above appeal and assist SPP before this honourable court during the trial (of the case)," said Anbazhagan in an application filed before the special bench here, which has been set up to hear the appeals filed by the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and three others who had challenged their conviction in the case.

Anbazhagan submitted that he had intervened before the appropriate courts at all stages of the trial "to ensure that justice is not derailed by powerful persons" who were tried for serious corruption charges.
The Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court had on January one set up the special bench of Justice C R Kumaraswamy to hear the appeals filed by Jayalalithaa and three others who had challenged their conviction in the case.
The special bench has been set up after the Supreme Court had on December 18 last directed the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court to constitute it to decide Jayalalithaa's plea within three months.

An apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu, had ordered that the hearing in the High Court on the appeal, filed by Jayalalithaa challenging her conviction and sentence in the case, be conducted on a day-to-day basis.
On October 17 last year, the apex court had granted conditional bail to Jayalalithaa, who was sent to jail by a trial court on September 27, saying that hearing on her appeal against conviction in the High Court should be completed in three months from December 18.
The special court had held Jayalalithaa and three others guilty of corruption. The court had awarded four years jail term and also slapped a fine of Rs 100 crore on the AIADMK chief. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 10 crore fine on each of the three other convicts.