Court to record evidence in wealth case against Jaya from 21 Jan

Bangalore: With the completion of deposition of all four accused, the Special Court trying the wealth case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa would start recording the evidence of defence witnesses from 21 January. Special judge M S Balakrishna posted the matter to 21 January for recording of the evidence of defence witnesses after the fourth accused Ilavarasi today answered 79 questions, completing all 650 questions framed by the court. [caption id=“attachment_582878” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] Responding to one of the questions, Ilavarasi, a relative of Sasikala Natarajan, close aide of Jayalalithaa, submitted the case had been filed against the AIADMK supremo because of “political compulsions”. Ilavarasi submitted she would also file written statements to some of the questions and would also examine the witnesses. The Judge then directed the counsels representing the accused C Manishankhar and Asokan to file a list of witnesses by 11 January and said recording of their evidence would commence from 21 January. Manishankhar sought time till 21 January to file the list of witnesses in the wake of public holidays because of “Pongal” (Sankranthi) festival and submitted the recording of evidence of the defence witnesses could begin from 27 January, to which the court did not agree. The court directed the counsels to furnish the interim list of witnesses in advance. PTI