India’s Jayalalithaa acquitted of corruption charges

The ruling comes as a surprise and caused celebrations in Chennai.

Lawyers from the Karnataka High Court hold a portrait of Jayalalithaa Jayaram, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu state and chief of her AIADMK party, during celebrations outside a court in BengaluruShow more

NEW DELHI // J Jayalalithaa, the former Tamil Nadu chief minister and one India’s most powerful politicians, was on Monday acquitted of all charges in a two-decade-old corruption case.

The shock verdict by the Karnataka high court overturned Ms Jayalalithaa’s conviction in September of amassing wealth far in excess of her known income.

The ruling triggered raucous celebrations in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, where members of Ms Jayalalithaa’s party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which rules Tamil Nadu, set off firecrackers near her residence and at the party headquarters.

“Amma is back,” the AIADMK’s website exulted. Ms Jayalalithaa, 67, is commonly referred to by her supporters to as “Amma”, meaning mother.

“Justice has been restored,” said Ms Jayalalithaa, who was forced to step down as head of the Tamil Nadu state government after her conviction. “This verdict has facilitated me to emerge as gold refined by fire.”

Media reports contrasted the brevity of the high court’s verdict with the 19 years that the case has been in the courts.

The judge, C R Kumaraswamy, said the reasoning behind Ms Jayalalithaa’s conviction “suffers from infirmity”, and that many of the prosecution witnesses were unreliable. Prosecutors had not sufficiently proven Ms Jayalalithaa’s intent to acquire assets in a corrupt manner, he said.

The case dates back to 1996, when a rival Tamil politician, Subramanian Swamy, filed a suit alleging Ms Jayalalithaa had amassed assets disproportionate to her income during her first term as chief minister, from 1991 to 1996.

Investigators who raided Ms Jayalalithaa’s residence in 1997 found 28 kilograms of gold, 800kg of silver, 750 pairs of shoes, 91 watches, 10,500 saris and other valuables worth 660 million rupees (Dh38m) altogether.

Prosecutors argued that Ms Jayalalithaa bought defunct companies and used them to launder money obtained through corruption.

The case dragged on for years. In 2003, it was shifted from the Madras high court in Chennai to a trial court in Bengaluru, in neighbouring Karnataka state, for fear of political interference, since Ms Jayalalithaa was then in her second term as Tamil Nadu chief minister.

The lower court judge in Bengaluru, Michael D’Cunha, found that Ms Jayalalithaa’s net worth had increased by roughly 550 million rupees between 1991 and 1996, from just 850,000 rupees in 1987. The court found Ms Jayalalithaa guilty and sentenced her to four years in prison, with a fine of one billion rupees. Three of her aides were also convicted and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and fines of 100 million rupees each.

The high court judge’s ruling on Monday, however, said Ms Jayalalithaa’s “disproportionate assets” were in fact a permissible percentage of her declared income. He cleared Ms Jayalalithaa’s three aides of all charges as well.

Ms Jayalalithaa’s conviction could have effectively ended her political career since she would have been barred from contesting elections for six years after serving her sentence. She had stepped down as chief minister, installing a party loyalist in her place and gave up her seat in the state assembly after being found guilty last year.

Her acquittal allows her to return as head of the state government, though she will have to win re-election to the legislature within six months of doing so, either through a by-election or by calling early state elections.

Her party holds 150 out of 234 seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly and won 37 out of the 39 parliamentary constituencies in the state in last year’s general election.

Ms Jayalalithaa was a successful Tamil movie star before joining the AIADMK in the early 1980s under the mentorship of the then chief minister, M G Ramachandran. Allegations of corruption have dogged her throughout her political career; over the past decade and a half, Ms Jayalalithaa has fought more than a dozen corruption cases, although she has been cleared in each of them.

Both Mr Swamy and the state of Karnataka can appeal the high court verdict in the supreme court, though neither party has indicated whether they will do so.