The DMK’s legal wing secretary, N.R. Elango said an appeal would be filed in the Supreme Court against the Madras High Court verdict sentencing T.N. Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy and his wife P. Visalakshi to three years of simple imprisonment in one of the disproportionate assets cases filed against him.
The appeal would be filed within the stipulated 30 days, he told reporters.
“A Judge is beyond suspicion. But Justice G. Jayachandran was a law secretary under the AIADMK regime and he handled the files relating to this case. Mr. Ponmudy came to know about this only yesterday,” Mr. Elango said.
When this was pointed out, Justice Jayachandran had replied that even if he had been informed about this earlier, he would not have opted out from hearing the case, Mr. Elango said.
“In legal parlance we call this latent bias. We will put forward these arguments before the apex court,” Mr. Elango said. adding that they had already proved that Mr. Ponmudy’s wife runs a business which generates an annual income of ₹5 crore.
If the sentence is stayed by the apex court, the issue of disqualification would not arise, Mr. Elango said. He also alleged that BJP was afraid of DMK’s strength.
