Surrender in Bengaluru court: Supreme Court to Sasikala

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed V.K. Sasikala, V.N. Sudhakaran and Ms Ilavarasi to surrender forthwith before the special court in Bengaluru. 

Indications are they will move an application in the apex court seeking four weeks time for surrender citing health and party work, now that she is the general secretary of the AIADMK. It is most unlikely that the apex court will grant her any time for surrender. 

Once they surrender they will be sent to a jail in Karnataka to serve out the remaining period of the four year sentence. She was in jail briefly for two months, soon after the initial arrest and after she was convicted by the trial court in September 2014. Once they are lodged in Karnataka jail, it is open to Sasikala to seek transfer to a jail in Tamil nadu by seeking such a direction from the Karnataka High Court, which may or may not be granted.

She has the option of filing a review petition in the apex court within 30 days for reconsideration of the judgment. If the review by two judges is dismissed, then last option is to file a curative petition which will be heard by five judges. If curative is also dismissed then she will have to remain in jail to serve out the sentence period.

On Tuesday morning court room no 6 in the Supreme Court was filled with lawyers mostly from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, who occupied the seats even at 9.30 am. The main petitioner Subramaniam Swamy and Karnataka advocates Dushant Dave, Aristotle, DMK lawyers V. Pragasan, R. Shanmugasundaram were seated in the front row.

The court master brought the bulky judgment to court at 10.25 am. The Two judges came to court at 10.32 am, the sealed cover was opened. Initially Justice Ghose said “it is  fatty judgment. I will read the conclusions” He then rendered the operative portion of the judgment and Justice Amitav Roy said he had supplemented to the main judgment and the entire proceedings lasted just eight minutes.