The nonagenarian leader was part of the prosecution since 2003, when the Supreme Court accepted his request to transfer the case out of Tamil Nadu, holding that an opposition party is like a watchdog on the party in power. On August 21, 2013, the apex court permitted Anbazhagan to assist the prosecution and file written submissions. Accordingly, he filed a 430-page submission in May 2014, and was also represented by his counsel in the trial court proceedings throughout.
Jayalalithaa and her associates - N Sasikalaa, J Elavarasi and V N Sudhagaran - were found guilty of amassing wealth to the tune of Rs 53.6 crore by a special court in Bengaluru on September 27, 2014.
All the four were sentenced to undergo imprisonment for four years each, besides being told to pay a combined fine of 130 crore of which Jayalalithaa alone was asked to pay 100 crore.
At present, all the four are out on bail, and their criminal appeals have been placed before a special bench of Justice C R Kumaraswamy for hearing.
The cases were first listed on January 2, and scheduled to come up for further hearing on January 5. The Supreme Court has ordered day-to-day hearing of the case.
In his petition, Anbazhagan underscored his relevance to the prosecution, and said since AIADMK's return to power in 2011 in Tamil Nadu, the accused had been doing everything to derail the prosecution. He said he had intervened at all stages of the trial to ensure that justice is not derailed by powerful persons being tried for serious corruption charges.
Anbazhagan said the accused, with the help of Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DV&AC) of the Tamil Nadu police, tried to close the case without allowing it to come to its logical end. "The chief secretary of Tamil Nadu in a letter dated June 8, 2011, asked the officer in charge of the case -- Sambandam, deputy superintendent of police of DV&AC -- to do further investigation of the case. Accordingly he presented a sealed envelope to the trial Judge on June 15, 2011, bypassing special public prosecutor B V Acharya, who was not inclined to accept the necessity of further investigation. The special judge deprecated the conduct of Sambandam, who tendered apology on June 23, 2011," Anbazhagan said.
Noting that he was vitally interested in the proper conduct of the case in the appeal stage also, the DMK general secretary said he had filed a 430-page written submission on May 19, 2014 before the special court elaborating the way in which the offence was committed by the accused persons and how they conspired among themselves to amass wealth by abusing the official position of Jayalalithaa.
He sought the high court's permission to intervene as a party to the appeals before it, and assist the special public prosecutor. The case was filed in 1996 against Jayalalithaa and three others for allegedly amassing wealth to the tune of Rs 66.6 crore during her first tenure as chief minister from 1991 to 1996. Delivering the verdict, Bengaluru special court judge Michael Cunha said while sources for assets worth Rs 13 crore were explained, Rs 53.6 crore remained unexplained.
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