In Chennai, cheers to tears in less than 30 mins as Jaya stays in jail -Governance Now

In Chennai, cheers to tears in less than 30 mins as Jaya stays in jail

Waiting for “Amma’s decision”on whether to move supreme court for bail, says close aide Navaneethakrishnan

Shivani Chaturvedi | October 7, 2014 | Chennai

In her bail plea former Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa maintained that the charge against her of amassing wealth disproportionate to her income, during 1991-96 when she was CM for the first time, was false and that she had acquired property through legal means.

CHENNAI: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday rejected bail plea of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa in a disproportionate assets case, quoting the supreme court's ruling that cases involving corruption should be put on fast track.

The development comes as a massive setback for the former chief minister.

In a matter of less than half an hour Chennai, as also the rest of Tamil Nadu, went from celebration to protest, and relief to agony as news from Bangalore initially said that Jayalalithaa had been granted conditional bail, before it emerged that the bail plea had been rejected.

ALSO READ: Why we should be proud of judge John Michael D’Cunha

As AIADMK workers across the state began a fresh round of protests, party MP and former advocate-general A Navaneethakrishnan said they are all waiting for Jayalalithaa to take a call on the next step. Asked whether Jayalalithaa would approach the apex court, the Rajya Sabha MP, a close aide of the former CM, told Governance Now, “We are awaiting Amma’s decision.”

As tempers ran high in Chennai and chief minister O Panneerselvam instructed the police to maintain law and order and asked party cadres to maintain calm and peace, reports of a poster put up by an expelled AIADMK party man in Chennai, threatening Kannadigas living in the state, created a stir. The poster carried the names of several prominent party leaders, including social welfare minister B Valarmathi.

"This has been done by an expelled functionary KC Vijay. This was done without our knowledge," AIADMK South Chennai (North) district AIADMK secretary VP Kalairajan was quoted by PTI.

Kalairajan said the party has ordered for immediate removal of such posters from all locations.

Earlier in the day, AIADMK supporters and Jayalalithaa loyalists thronged temples across the state to pray for her bail, with women from different sections, background and age group performing special pujas for Amma, as Jayalalithaa is referred to. “I will tonsure my head if Amma gets released from jail,” 57- year-old Gangaiamma said.

In Bangalore, the order by Karnataka high court justice AV Chandrashekhara came after special public prosecutor Bhavani Singh told the court he had no objection to granting conditional bail to Jayalalithaa. The former CM is in prison in Bangalore since her conviction by the special court on September 27. Special court judge John Michael D’Çunha had awarded four-year imprisonment and slapped a Rs 100-crore fine on Jayalalithaa in the Rs 66.65-crore disproportionate assets case that has been on for the past 18 years.

The court also rejected the pleas for bail by Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala and her relatives VN Sudhakaran, and Ilavarasi, who have also been sent to four years in jail in the 18-year-old case.

Comments

Other News

Diwali now part of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list

Deepavali, the festival of lights, has been inscribed on UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This was announced at the 20th UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee session at Red Fort, New Delhi, held from December 8-13, 2025. It is the 16th Indian element on thi

IIT Bombay launches Rs 250 crore deep-tech VC fund

The Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) at IIT Bombay has launched India’s first deep-tech venture capital fund managed by an academia-linked incubator -- the Y-Point Venture Capital Fund. With a total corpus of Rs 250 crore, the fund aims to accelerate early-stage deep-tech startups b

Revisiting anti-Sikh violence of 1984

Remembering the Past: Critical Perspectives on the Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984 Edited by Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry, with a Foreword by Amritjit Singh Orient BlackSwan, pages, Rs 1,285

`Vande Mataram showed India the way to self-reliance`

`Vande Mataram` showed India the way to self-reliance. "It became a mantra to challenge external companies, which also expanded the mantra of independence towards the mantra of Swadeshi,” prime minister Narendra Modi said in the Lok Sabha on Monday, as he initiated a debate on the occasion of th

“All success is 99 percent luck, and 1 percent bloody good luck”

From Topaz in the 1970s to Supermax through 2023, RK Malhotra was the man behind one of India`s top razor blade brands. His unusual story is now told in ‘Ace of Blades: The Life Story of the Blade King of India’ (Jaico Publishing House). This is an account of a man whose obsession with the

India-Russia ties: Anchored in trust, deep mutual understanding

Unlike the US and the West, Russia does not have a relationship with India merely based on transactional exchange of goods or commodities. Instead, it is based on deep mutual understanding and trust, which have helped the two countries in navigating ups and downs of international geopolitics for decades.