Sasikala has few legal options before her after conviction in DA case

After AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala was convicted by the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a 19-year-old disproportionate assets case, that also involved late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, the embattled leader of the party has few options before her.  The apex court restored in toto the judgement and findings of the trial court in Bengaluru, which had held guilty all the accused, including Sasikala’s two relatives, VN Sudhakaran and Elavarasi. Sasikala may now make an application for a review of the judgement. This application would have to be preferred within 30 days. There will be no oral arguments and a review will only be admitted if there is an error apparent on the face of the record. The chances of a review petition being admitted are slim. If that fails, she can even prefer a curative petition stating that natural justice was violated in her case. The chances of that being admitted are even more slim. A two-judge bench comprising Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy directed Sasikala and her two relatives to surrender forthwith to the trial court in Bengaluru and serve the remaining part of four year jail term. But if she has served any time in prison already, she would be given credit for that time that has already been served. And since Sasikala served six months in prison, she would now have to serve a further three-and-a-half year prison sentence. She can also apply for probation — as any normal prisoner may be entitled to under the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958. Based on the report of her probation officer regarding her conduct and the prospects of her rehabilitation, she may be allowed probation. With inputs from agencies