NEW DELHI, APRIL 6: AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha's counsel today submitted before the Supreme Court that issuance of notifications by the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government on the trial of corruption cases against her were bad in law as no proper consultation was done with the Madras High Court.Senior advocate PP Rao, the counsel, however, pointed out that though this was not a challenge to the Centre's February five notification, which transferred 46 corruption cases against her from three special judges to sessions courts, if the proposition of non-consultation was to be taken into account all the notifications appear to be bad in law.Proper consultation with the high court meant that the view of the full court should have been taken, he told a division bench comprising Justices GT Nanavati and SP Kurdukar, adding views of the Chief Justice, acting CJ or a committee of judges did not reflect the view of the high court.At this point, attorney general Soli J Sorabjee wanted a clarification whether hewas questioning the validity of the central notification.The counsel replied in the negative but said as the state government while issuing the April 17 and April 30, 1997 notifications and the central government the February five notification this year had not complied with the procedure laid down for proper consultation of the high court, all the three notifications would be bad in law.The arguments will continue tomorrow.The TN government by its April 17 notification appointed several special judges for trial of corruption cases and by the April 30 notification appointed three more special judges to exclusively try corruption cases against former chief minister Jayalalitha, some of her erstwhile cabinet colleagues and certain bureaucrats.The Centre, by its February five notification had transferred the cases pending before the special judges to other special judges after classifying them on the basis of the stage of trial in each case.The Madras HC last November had upheld the April 30notification of the state government. Jayalalitha and others had challenged the high court order in the Supreme Court.Earlier, arguing for Jayalalitha, senior advocate KK Venugopal contended that Section 3(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act did not confer any power on the state government to divest special judges with area jurisdiction from trying certain cases and entrusting them to others.He said the state government in its notification had not specified what was the necessity for creation of three special courts for trial of corruption cases against Jayalalitha and others as was mandatory under Section 3(1).
