The Supreme Court will hear on Friday the bail applications of former Tamil nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa and three others in the Rs 66-crore disproportionatge assets case in which they were convicted and sentenced to undergo four years’ imprisonment by a special court in Bengaluru. A bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra will hear the matter. On December 18, 2014, the bench had extended the bail granted on October 17, 2014 till Friday. The bench, in the meanwhile, had asked the Karnataka high court to complete hearing the appeals filed by Jayalalithaa and three others. Accordingly, Justice Kumaraswamy completed the hearing and reserved verdict on March 11. In the meanwhile a Bench of justices Madan Lokur and Ms. R. Banumathi had given a split verdict on the question of appointment of Bavani Singh as special public prosecutor to represent the prosecution in the appeals in the High Court. Even as the judge had requested the CJI to grant time till April 30 for pronouncing the judgment, the Bench of Justices Lokur and Ms. Banumathi had left it to the Judge to take a call on whether the give the verdict or not. Senior counsel Fali Nariman, appearing for Ms. Jayalalithaa is expected to request the CJI to constitute a three-judge Bench to expedite hearing the issue of Bhavani singh to enable the High court to render its verdict at the earliest keeping in mind the December 18, 2014 order that the appeal haring should be completed in three months.
