Urges apex court to grant urgent hearing after High Court had refused her earlier bail plea

NEW DELHI (TIP): Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha, denied bail by Karnataka High Court following her conviction and four year sentence in a graft case, moved the Supreme Court for bail on October 9.

The AIADMK chief, who is behind bars for the last 12 days, challenged the High Court order which refused her bail plea. She urged the apex court to grant an urgent hearing on her plea on Saturday during the mentioning hour. Jayalalitha said she has been sentenced only for four years and is also suffering from various ailments as grounds for her immediate relief.

She said as chief minister she did not misuse her powers in this case.

She also cited grounds of being a senior citizen and a woman in a bid to get out of jail.

The 66-year-old veteran politician was denied bail by the High Court on October 7 despite the Special Public Prosecutor not objecting to grant of conditional bail.

In her petition seeking immediate bail, Jayalalitha maintained that the charge of amassing wealth during 1991-96 when she was chief minister for the first time was false and that she had acquired property through legal means. She also contended the trial court had overlooked several judgements and not considered the binding nature of various income tax orders and decisions of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, which had accepted the income and the level of expenditure pleaded by her. There “are no grounds” to give bail to Jayalalitha. Corruption amounts to “violation of human rights” and leads to economic imbalance, the High Court judge had said. The HC also rejected bail pleas of Jayalalitha’s close aide Sasikala and her relatives V N Sudhakaran, disowned foster-son of the former chief minister, and Ilavarasi, who have also been sentenced to four years jail in the 18-year-old case.