HC suspends sentence against ex-TN minister

The Madras High Court today suspended the three-year prison term awarded by a special court to former Tamil Nadu minister C Aranganayagam in a corruption case.
Additional Sessions Judge for Vigilance & Anti-Corruption cases here had on April 17 awarded the jail term to Aranganayagam for accumulating disproportionate assets of Rs 1.15 crore during 1991-96 when he was part of the then Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government.
Justice N Sathish Kumar, before whom the appeal filed by Aranganayagam against the order came up today, admitted the appeal and posted the matter for arguments to June 28.
The Directorate of Vigilance & Anti-Corruption had registered a case against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act in 1998. The charge sheet was filed in 2006.

The DVAC case was that Aranganayagam as the education minister and as an MLA and as a public servant, had acquired and possessed in his name and in the names of his wife and sons properties of value of Rs 1.15 crore and that the same were disproportionate to his known sources of income.
The special court judge, however, acquitted Aranganayagam's wife and two sons of all the charges in the case.
The judge had granted bail to Aranganayagam, in his 70s, on a personal bond of Rs 25,000 with two sureties of the like sum to enable him challenge his conviction and sentence in the high court.